The Emerald Angel
by Lady Shockbox
Summary: A sister fanfic to "The Little Details" - Angels bring comfort to the weak, though especially if they're emerald. Luckily, Terrorsaur realized that just in time when he fell in love with Waspinator. Terrorsaur's POV. Heavy Slash. Beast Wars. DISCONTINUED.
1. Act I

Here it finally is. The last part of my Terrorsaur/Waspinator _"The Little Details"_ trilogy. I started writing this right after _"The Scarlet Star"_ went up, but it has taken me significantly longer to write than the previous installment due to personal reasons. Now, nearly two years later, it's finally ready to leave the safety of my computer and make its debut online. This entire epic was difficult to write from a severe lack of support and motivation, but I refused to let it die in the water. I'm very stubborn that way. Unlike _"The Scarlet Star" _however, I will upload the chapters separately. Also, this is my first story under my new penname - Lady Shockbox - in commemoration of my seventeenth birthday and five years of being on Fanfiction.

For everyone else, I'll give you fair warning before you read, which is the same advisement that I put on _"The Scarlet Star."_ This is _not _a story for the faint of heart. This fanfic contains _very, VERY_ heavy slash, politics that involve taking away civil rights, drug references, sparkling abortion, child abuse, prostitution, gang beating, cannon death, and _rape_. If you're even mildly uncomfortable with _any_ of these terms previously mentioned - mostly concerning the slash element - hit the back button _right now. _For those of you who plan to go along for the ride, please enjoy. Then for the people who already read _"The Little Details"_ and _"The Scarlet Star"_ jointly… I have yet _another_ twist conclusion waiting at the end of the story for you.

As a final note, I now present to _"The Emerald Angel."_

* * *

**No, you'll never be alone**

**My love is just waiting to turn your tears to roses**

_Whispers in the Dark _- Skillet

**In my life we'll always go on**

**And my heart will go on and on **

_My Heart Will Go On_ - Celine Dion

"Jack, I swear…" ~Ennis, _"Brokeback Mountain"_

_Dedicated to everyone who lost the right to marriage with the bigoted passing of Maine's Proposition 1._

**A Sister Fanfic - Based off _"The Little Details"_**

**i**

My emerald angel?

I'm not one to get all sappy over love stories and tragedies. In fact, I was never a big fan of them at all. This probably came about because I had to endure so much hate during the first early years of my life while I lived on Cybertron. I got cold after that and I guess that's why I came across as being as being your standard, heartless Predacon. It's not like that for me anymore now. _Especially_ not after what happened when I found my angel. Primus, I'll _never_ love anyone more than him _ever_. Thankfully, he'll always love me more than anything too. I know that part of him wants to forget everything that happened between us before fate tore me out of his arms, but part of me also _wishes_ that he could forget too, because then he won't have to suffer in remembering me. I hate seeing him suffer. He lived for me, f_unctioned_ for me… ultimately, I lived for him too. Everything's changed though, and I can tell that he misses me. He cries himself to sleep some nights, and it kills me inside knowing that there's nothing I can do to take that pain from him. I can't even hold him like I used to anymore. All I can do is watch and guard.

I promised him that I would stay with him forever and, little does he know, I kept my promise in full. My emerald angel lit my night with stars and now it's my turn to light his… they say that the dead can't speak. Well, I think I've effectively knocked that theory right onto its shiny metal skid plate. In life, I wasn't best known for keeping my mouth shut.

I remember the whole ordeal involving us like the places he loved to be touched most on his body. It started out like any other partnership. Simple and nothing more than business.

I met him for the first time in an abandoned warehouse after Megatron had collected us - his assorted mismatched crew - for his plan to steal the Golden Disk. It was probably less than a week before the master plan was going to be carried out and we were _ungenerously_ reduced to meeting in the slurs of an abandoned Predacon shipping port that had been shut down by Maximal law enforcement. It wasn't the one I had worked for before I quit, but I wouldn't have been surprised if the firm I worked for was shut down next. Either way, Megatron was the one who introduced me to my emerald angel. For once, the dumb tyrant of a grape faced leader did something _right_… I was admittedly afraid of Megatron when I first met him and I think a part of me is still scared of him now. It was his eyes. I had met someone like him during what was supposed to be the better years of my life, but then that individual ruined everything for me. Megatron had the same colored eyes as that individual.

My role in the theft of the Golden Disk wasn't supposed to deal with the actual theft at all. My job - and the job of another mech who Megatron was going to introduce me to - was to steal a ship from the nearby shipping port right by the museum where the golden relic was being stored. While Megatron walked me through the halls towards the main meeting area - I had just arrived by taxi because Seekers like myself were forbidden to fly in city airspace by Maximal law - he gave me an overview of what I was supposed to do during my mission with my assigned partner. He explained that Dinominer - who later renamed himself Dinobot - had selected the ship we would have the easiest time evading Maximal law enforcement in. Her name was the _Darkside_. She wasn't the type of cruiser that I was familiar with when it came to piloting, but I knew I was going to be stumped when it came to hotwiring the beauty.

"That is your partner's job. Dinominer originally hired you to do both, but he found this Predacon when we realized you couldn't rewire the ship yourself," Megatron said with very little vice. He had more important things to think about than a doubtful Seeker such as myself. The only reason I had agreed to helping him steal the Golden Disk to begin with was because I was sick of Maximal rule, and he could have cared less.

It was seemingly going to be an eventless meeting. I wasn't thinking very much of it when we entered the main room. Megatron led me to where Dinominer and Scrappernok were discussing possible security measures they would have to disable in the process of stealing the Golden Disk, but there was a mech sitting silently alone while listening to them. I hadn't met him before during previous meetings and I immediately realized this was supposed to be my partner. He was a scrawny little helicopter with green and yellow highlights along his chassis. I was an egotistical Seeker at most, but I couldn't help but to cross my arms across my chest nervously. It was an otherwise unfriendly posture but I couldn't help but take the stance. My wings went rigid and I glanced away out of apprehensiveness.

Megatron came to a stop and tapped the green mech on the shoulder, making him whip around to face our violet leader in surprise. His optics were concealed behind a baby blue visor and, when I had the chance to see closely enough, I saw that his optics were the same hue. It was an innocent color that seemed to be more in character for Maximals than Predacons.

Megatron's voice when he spoke, to this day, is still as clear as a bell to me. "You there, Terminator. That _is_ you're name isn't it? Never mind that, I want to introduce you to your new partner. The both of you will be responsible for stealing our getaway ship and flying it to the archives where you'll pick the rest of us up. Anyways, this is Terrorsoar."

From the moment I made eye contact with him, I suppose both of us knew something was bound to intertwine our fates. If the pretty much instant silence that followed our optics meeting for the first time didn't give it away, the intensity of our stares definitely did. His optics - a serene sky blue that were cool with an oddly intelligent, disturbingly wise nature - bore into my own and I was instantly lost in them. We broke optic contact eventually, though I failed to realize that I'd someday be lost in those same eyes forever… but, for the time being, we were silent with one another. It must be hard to imagine me being quiet about _anything_ - as I've said before, I wasn't known in life for being able to keep my damn mouth shut - but that was a fact. We only spoke when absolutely needed and there were no real conversations that passed between us.

Even after we crashed onto prehistoric Earth - I didn't realize it when we first crashed, but I know it's prehistoric Earth _now_ - we were quiet towards each other still. I changed my name from Terrorsoar to Terror_saur_ and he changed his from Terminator to Waspinator.

Despite the fact we were Megatron's only fliers and were often paired together for patrol missions, very little words ever passed between us. Aside the occasional pointing out of something suspicious while flying or me barking orders at Waspinator when we saw Maximals below, our flights were usually always very hushed. I was normally the stronger of us and consequently more prevailing, so it was easy for me to assume command of our duo. Waspinator was definitely the most headstrong - he was younger, so that made sense - but that still didn't matter in regards to finding something to fill in our wordless voids. It was still mostly silence. Back then I presumed we could call it the silence of a flier's respect, though I was clueless as to _why_ we never wanted to actually speak. Waspinator seemed occasionally adamant to try starting some conversations up, though. I gotta give the guy props for _that much_. Once he idly pointed out how pretty the ground looked below while we flew over a vast savannah, although I merely shrugged it off and said it was okay before going quiet once more. It wasn't that I was _nervous_ around him or anything, but I didn't want to accidently say something offensive to him and ruin our already strained partnership. _If it ain't broke, don't fix it, _as my adoptive father used to say. I didn't have to worry about myself too much though, because it was actually _Waspinator_ who almost ruined it for me. There was a time where he asked me if I ever smoked while we were patrolling further out from the _Darkside_ than usual. Some very bad memories slapped me across my mental face hard enough to give me whiplash. I glared at him angrily, told me _no_ with a biting hiss, and that was when we accidentally locked gazes. We stared at one another for a long time before I forcibly made myself break the contact. I asked him to not talk to me for the rest of our flight. He didn't. It wasn't that I was truly upset with Waspinator - he couldn't have known better about my feelings towards his question - but that brief eye contact left me very anxious.

We certainly _were_ an odd pair. I was beginning to understand why so many of the ground crawlers back on Cybertron said that fliers were weird. Waspinator was definitely no exception, poor bastard.

Before we crash landed and became stranded, the green flier was as normal as the rest of us… with the exception of Tarantulas for obvious reasons, but that's because he's a loon. Whatever. That's not the point. Point _is,_ whether his beast-mode altered his CPU programming before the crash jarred his senses, Waspinator had severe difficulty talk in first person or without a buzz. It must have been horrifying for the poor guy when he found out he had a vocal glitch - I know I would have - and despite several elongated rounds in the CR, the damage looked to the rest of us as though it couldn't be undone. I had a feeling that he sometimes tried to will himself to vocalize normally like he used to, but he still talked like he had the intelligence level of a drone. Articulating pronouns was obviously very difficult for him and no one could really understand what the poor mech was ever talking about… all of them, of course, except for _me._

Yeah. You're probably all seeing where _this_ is going…

If you completely pushed Waspinator out of the general picture, I also went through some noticeable changes when we crashed as well. Don't get me wrong though, at least none of them were nearly as bad as Waspy's were. My voice originally had a rasp that sounded like I had been a heavy smoker back on Cybertron - which was probably why Waspinator asked me if I used to smoke - but, after getting our new beast-modes, my overall tone had a screeched element added to it. My voice alone was enough to give anyone a headache and my shriek when someone startled me or shot me down was _nearly_ unbearable. Nearly, I say, because Waspinator never seemed to be bothered by it. I'd get plenty of complaints from everyone else - teasing Maximals included - but _never_ Waspinator.

Still, I was the only one who _did_ understand what he was saying from time to time, and I often translated on his behalf to the others. I mean, it was annoying that no one else could follow his speech patterns regardless of how simple they actually were. It was _only_ third person with a severe lack of pronouns. How difficult is it to understand _that?_ Waspinator at least seemed to be thankful with my brief interventions, and everyone eventually adjusted to his speech patterns after awhile. That definitely eased some of the awkwardness between all of us as a team, but the fact remained that Waspinator and I were _still_ quiet with each other. He did briefly thank me for playing the role of translator in what I undoubtedly thought was an attempt at ending the silence between us, but I shrugged it off and said nothing because of how _weird_ that made me feel. No one had ever thanked me for anything in my entire life, or at least as far back into is as I can accurately remember. We continued our silence.

Optic locking was another thing altogether. Even though we didn't speak openly to one another for whatever reason that made us uncomfortable to, our staring contests made up for it. Hugely so.

The small glances we shared turned into fully blow out, intense staring contests. We came into eye contact very often, habitually staring at one another like we were seeing the other for the first time in our entire existence. No one else seemed to notice - that made me thankful, seeing how self-conscious I was about the whole thing as it was - but it was unnerving all the same. He could have been working at a console, I at a monitor, and I would just barely incline my head to look over my shoulder when he would look as well. It was a coincidence he would do so, almost as if a higher power made him glance in my direction, and our eyes would lock like a vice grip instantly. His optics, deep blue with a cool calmness, were ones I would instantly be lost in. We usually broke the contact around the same time, but I felt as though he backed out more often. I would often both hope and dread for the next time we would have another unannounced staring bouts.

Then we tried to avoid each other completely. _Tried._

I was positive that the rest of the Predacons noticed, but I honestly didn't care. Our staring contests - if you could even call them that - finally made me loose my nerve. I avoided Waspinator at all costs and, almost as if he was receptive to my thoughts, he began to avoid me as well. Even _when_ we started the habit of purposely avoiding each other however, attempting to not to get into those staring matches still seemed almost futile. We still locked optics very often when we were forced into one another's company and, as a result, we both seemed to go to even more unconscious extremes to eliminate the chances completely. We even went as far as to fly further away from each other during patrols. I wondered if there was something we were trying to avoid about one another. It seemed like a queer thought but, then again, there were things about Waspinator that even _I_ couldn't pin. I was never good at reading people anyways, but Waspinator was a completely new foreign language to me. During the new development in our tense association, the silence still lingered between us like a thick steel barrier.

One day however, the barrier was broken - like Megatron's ugly mug after I was through with it, at least - when I tossed Grape Face over the side of a cliff. That was after I supercharged myself on raw energon in a drunken attempt to overthrow our leader. I wish I could remember it… the first half hour, at least. It wasn't so great after those thirty cycles were up.

From what I was told after it happened, I apparently absorbed energon directly into my superstructure after coming into contact with the flying mountain. I don't remember how that happed. From what I was also told, I immediately left the island to confront the rest of the Predacon fleet on one of the many tall plateaus overlooking the Darkside's lovely lava fields. They were all up there to test out new grid security system and, almost immediately finding them, I challenged Megs to a fight for leadership. He didn't count on me winning. I did. Everything gets really fuzzy around there, so I can't recall exactly what was going through my head when I shot him in the chest to send him hurdling over the cliff. After I crowned myself leader, Waspinator also told me that I doubled over in pain. Apparently I suffered from an energon surge from my energy high. What goes up must come down as they say, and my power reserves were rapidly draining. I flew back to the mountain to recharge myself.

Bad idea. The Maxis beat me to it. Some of the scuffing on my hide suggested that I got into a midair brawl with Primal, but the only thing I can actually recall from the ordeal was seeing those bombs strapped to several energon crystals. The floating mountain was blown up, courteous of Rattrap's trademark energy charges. Fragging rat.

I barely managed to get out there by the skin of my teeth, but the exploding energon reserves nearly frying my skid plate were the least of my problems. I wasn't fully aware of it at the time due to the energy deprivation hangover starting to settle over my head, but I was in some _very_ serious trouble. I escaped from the detonating debris of the obliterated mountain and found it in my best interest to return to the _Darkside_ to regroup with the rest of my Predacons… they weren't my Predacons anymore of course, but I didn't know then. The flight back was laborious and halfway there, my online computers warned me that my power reserves were depleted so badly that stasis lock was imminent. I ignored it for the most part, but I was on the verge of collapse when I reached the base. I came in from the western side and swopped in, trying in my best power to keep my wings steady as I did. I could imagine that I looked like total slag. My sense of coordination was shot and the red aurora and sparking waves that once consumed my frame were gone, replaced by the shakiness, unsteadiness, and instability of someone who was coming down from being overcharged. It was painfully obvious from the shadow of the ship where Scorponok, Megatron, and Waspinator stood that I was trying my best not to drop out of the sky unconscious from the energy loss. It was then I landed in beast-mode, stumbling and nearly falling, that Megatron revealed himself to me. He stalked out of the darkness with the air of a predator floating around him.

"Well, well. Look who's _back…" _Megatron's voice was menacing and it hardened with every word, dripping with a silent promise that there would be much hurt in store for my sorry skid plate.

I felt all the color from my face leave me at the sight of him walking towards me. I squawked out a weak help. I clumsily transformed to my robot-mode and stumbled backward. My already poor coordination made my footing fail and I stumbled. I tripped heavily and landed hard on his back, barely managing to not hit his head against the cooled rock of the lava pits our ship had sunken into. Helpless and unable to escape Megatron's wrath…

"_Zztop!"_

And then everything went dark. Did I think I was dead? _Pitt yeah._ I figured I would be scrapped into another lifetime after my botched up takeover attempt, but that didn't happen. In fact, as I came to learn later, I wasn't even scrapped up at all. In the meantime however, during my unconscious bout brought up by my exhaustion, I had a strange dream. It was pitch black in an endless void of darkness and freezing bitter cold. I couldn't tell left from right or up from down, and trying to move was just as useless as trying to cry out for help. It was as if someone cruelly tied me down with weights. The more I thought about it, the more I could distinctly feel the pressing heaviness of actual chains keeping me grounded to the floor. My claustrophobia kicked in and I was starting to hyperventilate and vainly struggle free. My attempts were entirely fruitless. I tried to scream for help several times - I knew no one would come, but there was nothing else I could do and I was becoming increasingly desperate - but my voice was lost in the darkness. That was around the same time when I started hearing voices. I couldn't make out what they were saying, but I honestly didn't want to. I was scared out of my Primus damned mind. There was nothing benevolent about those constant whisperings. The worst part was what - I swear this on my entire _life_ - that they were coming closer. Once I thought I saw something shuffle out of my line of vision twice. It was absolutely horrifying.

Then there was a light. A green one. I cranked my head to look out of surprise, but I had to turn away because of the brightness. The weights crushing me down were lifting away and, all of I sudden, I felt as if I was airborne. There was a rhythmic humming from the direction of the light.

I know now that it was buzzing.

When I regained consciousness, Waspinator was the first one to see me. I awoke to the liquid warmth of the CR chamber and recognized where I was only because of my blurred vision looking out into the white gelatinous substance of the tank. I gave a mental sigh of relief, but inwardly groaned when I felt the soreness still lingering in my body. And I had a headache. 'Perfect,' I thought bitterly to myself. The platform rose underneath me and caught me on its metal surface. When it brought me up out of the liquid, I could feel the extent of my aching body. All the damage was repaired, yeah, but it would take awhile for the ache to go away. That was something that the CR couldn't naturally cure, even _on_ its highest settings. I felt like I had a hangover… which was actually a pretty accurate expression. I glanced around wearily trying to get a grip on my surroundings.

Someone to my immediate right cleared their throat.

The gears in my neck snapped when I turned he turned to face the perpetrator. I was caught off guard by how _close_ he sounded, and I was also caught off guard by how close he actually was too. I never even heard him jump onto the lift when I resurfaced. Standing on the deck with me was none other than Waspinator. He was kneeling down so that he was more at my level and he was regarding me with those strange blue eyes. I didn't meet them. I looked at his chest instead.

He spoke up. His voice a strangely articulated razz. "Terror-bot is welcome."

"For what?" I shifted my head to look up to him, but I quickly stilled the movement. I was as uncomfortable as the Pitt. Out of the corner of my optic, I saw that we were in the command center. I saw Scorponok working at a monitor and Tarantulas standing by him, but I didn't see Grape Face anywhere. I still has to presume he was in the room, seeing he was usually always in his throne chair and my view of it was cut off by Waspinator's blocking view. I mentally thanked the klutzy bug for it.

Waspinator buzzed, breaking back into my train of thought. His voice was confident. "Terror-bot came back when floating mountain exploded. Was overcharged and Megatron went to slag Terror-bot. Wazzpinator stopped him."

_That_ caught my attention. I looked up at him fully, resorting to simply looking between his eyes to continue avoiding his gaze. It looked to me as though Waspinator was staring in between mine as well, although not without noticing the bewildered look undoubtedly shining within his optics. There was a contemplative look on his face. My voice was quiet when I spoke up again. "What?"

"Wazzpinator saved Terror-bot from getting his butt kicked by Megatron. Terror-bot is welcome."

I blinked once, twice, and then the thought crossed my mind that he must have wanted something from me. I couldn't fathom of a reason why he would have saved my skid plate otherwise. The thought sounded ridiculous at first but, the more I reminisced about it, the more it made sense. I thought about the outcry of I had heard before I went offline. No one razzed like that but Waspinator. It _had_ to have been him. The thing was, I couldn't understand _why_ he would have wanted to help me. I had never done anything for him, so what did he want?

I thought about it for a split second. A very, _very_ bad memory prodded my core processor.

I looked downcast and attempted to stand. I was unsteady on my feet at first, but I immediately declined help by swatting Waspinator's hand away when he tried to assist me. Now I was starting to feel unsafe. I glanced over my shoulder towards the rest of the command center - everyone was at work and I was finally able to see Megatron glancing in our general direction every few moments - and I mentally cursed. I wasn't going to stick around if _he_ was here. I figured it would be far wiser to face Waspinator than Megatron, regardless as to what the wasp mech wanted from me. I mumbled quietly, addressing my wingmate. "Let's talk this over somewhere more private. Your room is closest I think."

Then he pointed out that his room was towards the very back of the quarters hall. This meant _mine_ was closest. I cursed quietly after he corrected me.

"Fine. We'll head down to mine. Follow me."

I unsteadily lifted into the air and took off for the passage that lead to the hallway. I could hear Waspinator's buzzing wings as he followed after me. I didn't dare look over my shoulder to see if Megatron had been present as Waspinator and I entered the extra CR hold chamber before blowing past it going towards the barrack halls. We passed the captain quarters flanking my left - I lead the way down the darkened corridor while he followed - before we passed Scorponok's on the right and found ourselves in front of mine. I entered the code on the access panel just beside the frame, hopefully too fast for Waspinator's eyes to follow, and the door hissed open. I stepped in first and he followed me.

Waspinator breathed sharply. I figured it was because of surprise. "It's just a secondary cabinet quarters. Scorponok turned it down because it didn't have a big enough work station for him. Tarantulas didn't want it either, so I called it."

Which I was very glad that I initially had. My room was about a quarter larger than the standard with a slightly larger berth by only a few inches in width. A desk sat on the opposite side of the room to face the right wall, but the window that took the space in between was huge. Its height was probably somewhere around the size of Rattrap, but the length stretched from the end of the berth's headrest to the edge of the desk. It was dark from the fact the sun had set a while back, but the light from the two moons shone through the reinforced space proof glass to cast its luminescence across the two pieces of furniture in a way that lit up the whole room. I cleared his voice and told the lights to activate. They did so immediately.

I quickly walked across the room and sat on my recharge berth, holding my head in my hands and propping my elbows on my knees. My headache was starting to really bother me and I didn't want to have my back to Waspinator any longer than I had to. He was on my playing fields now - in my living space - and that made me highly nervous as it was. Out of the corner of my vision however, I could still see that the wasp was still standing at the front of the room. Maybe he was still admiring my space. Either that, or he was stupidly waiting for an invitation. I waited for half a click and, when he still didn't move, I spoke up. "You can take the roller."

"Thankzz," he murmured. From what I could see from looking downcast at the floor, he was crossing the room stiffly and he took a stiff seat in the roller chair by the desk. He turned it around so he could face me.

I had to resist looking up to watch him, both afraid to look and terrified not to. He didn't _seem_ malicious in any sort of way, but that didn't stop me from feeling suspicious. If he helped me, I was damn well sure that he wanted something… I was just honestly terrified of what it was. Memories of my past life flooded my core processor and I had to very desperately force myself to suppress the shudder that wanted to wrack my hide. I kept my head downcast and rubbed at my temples in a vain attempt to clear my migraine. "What is it you want?"

"Eh?" From what I could see looking up at him with my eyes, Waspinator was staring at me nearly sincere stupidity. He blinked with that same naive air looming over him. Innocence - an element that I could thankfully easily recognize, after the nightmares I had to endure back on Cybertron - shone in his blue optics like light playing off water and I instantly breathed a mental sigh of relief. He looked genuinely confused though. He was probably wondering why I asked him what it was he wanted. I didn't think he was _that_ stupid, but I was glad that he wasn't thinking of what I had initially feared. I overestimated his intentions.

I didn't look up when I spoke again. It wasn't that I was still nervous, but now I was beginning to notice the pounding in my head more noticeably now. I continued to hold my head in my hands and I massaged my aching temples my digits. "You know what I mean. Preds only do things for people if they want something. If you saved me from Megatron beating the slag out of me for my takeover stunt, then you must obviously want something. What is it?"

Waspinator razzed, irritating my harsh headache. He might have been hurt, but I was sure that he understood Predacon nature enough to know that I didn't necessarily mean anything by it. Being second class citizens, Predacons like us often had to survive off the streets for a good portion of our lives. None of us in the _Darkside_ save for Megatron - who had become a very successful public speaker and lawyer - and Tarantulas - from only _Primus_ knows where - had a decent living when we joined the crew. Scorponok had been living in a rescue shelter, one of very few that didn't discriminate against Predacons, while Dinobot had come from an underground Predacon fighting league. As far as I knew, Waspinator had simply been homeless. Myself… I'd rather not talk about it. Not right away at least. Later. I looked up and saw that Waspinator was blankly staring ahead of himself, deep in thought.

I cleared my throat.

He snapped back to attention and turned his head to fully look at me again. He must have seen the weariness in my eyes, because he quickly spoke again to fill the empty silence. "Wazzpinator could see Terror-bot needed help. Wazzpinator was only one there that was willing to give it. Wazzpinator doesn't want…" He trailed off, mulling his thoughts over for a moment or so. "…Maybe Wazzpinator have idea."

I raised an optic ridge. "What?"

He shrugged in a nonchalant fashion. "Maybe… Maybe we'zz could watch each otherzz back? Wazzpinator could help Terror-bot get out of tight jams if he gets there and Terror-bot can salvage Wazzpinator if he blowzz up?"

That was it? Apparently, judging by the silence that followed, it was. He wanted nothing more of me… and, obviously, had only come up with the terms off the top of his head. He never saved me because he wanted something from me. He saved me because he felt that he should. If I wasn't such an egomaniac back then, that might have moved me now more than it did. I mentally recapped. Even if I agreed to save his sorry aft every time he managed to get it scrapped - which, granted, I knew was going to be very frequently - I would at least have someone to bail me out of Megs ever lost his temper with my… treachery… again. The more I thought about it, I figured Waspinator would help me out regardless as to whether or not I agreed, but I decided against it. If he was going to be one of the very few people in my life who was going to behave hospitable towards me, I might as well let him. I let out a dry laugh. Predacons and hospitable weren't words that usually went in the same sentence. I looked at the ground, shook my head dismissively, and then glanced back up at the wasp mech with a light smirk tugging at the corners of my mouth. "I guess we sorta… Got off on the wrong hand before. I wouldn't have avoided you so much if I knew you would ask me a favor and do something in return. You'd help me if Megs decided to chew me out?"

Waspinator nodded reassuringly. He reminded me almost of a little kid in that split second. He certainly seemed to have the psyche of one, at least. "As long as Terror-bot helped Wazzpinator to a CR chamber if Wazzpinator couldn't get there."

My smirk twitched at one corner of my mouth. I held out my hand. "Deal. So let's start over… the name's Terrorsaur."

I extended my own hand and grasped his in a firm handshake. "Wazzpinator."

And our hands, oddly enough, stayed interlocked for longer then they should have.

There was an abrupt change in the air of the room, and we both spontaneously looked into each other's face and accidentally locked eyes. His ocean blue ones met mine and burned through me like liquid fire. I instantly let go of his hand out of reflex. As a response, he did as well. We both pulled back in unexplained embarrassment and I instantly looked away. I couldn't be sure whether or not he followed my gesture of serene discomfort, but I randomly imagined he was looking at me with those strangely beautiful eyes that, for reasons beyond me, made my spark flutter in my chest when I thought about it. It was an oddly queer sensation and, to an extent, it bothered my logic circuits and made my emotion chips whir almost annoyingly.

The boisterous, wordless moment lasted only a cycle or so before I finally broke it forever.

Waspinator reached behind his head and rubbed it tentatively, buzzing in a nervous tone and razzing when he spoke. He didn't look at me. "Zzo… Friends?"

The silence was broken. _Everyone_ noticed it.

When we went to start our duties the next morning, everyone in the control room was gawking at our new behavior. It was hilarious, actually. Tarantulas and Scorponok kept looking at me like I had maybe lost some of my processing bytes… which, more than likely, I probably had. You would too if you overcharged on an entire mountain's worth of raw energon! We even requested to have the same shift times as one another… fine. _Waspinator_ did, but only because I wasn't ready to, erm, _confront_ our mighty leader, yet. Not so soon after my botched up takeover, at least. Though I didn't try a takeover attempt during the few weeks that followed, poor Waspinator was blown to scrap nearly everyday at some point or another. Sometimes he wasn't even _shot_ at. Once he crashed into a tree. It was funny at first, but it was just downright depressing when he did it _again_ on _the same tree_ just two frelling days later. Surprisingly to even myself though, I held up on my half of our little deal. I would linger behind after battles when Waspinator's parts littered the ground like confetti and I'd laboriously help pick his pieces up when the coast was clear. I usually didn't wait for him by the CR chambers after the incidents but, as time went on, I would stay around the tubs more and more often to see him when he woke up. At first I told myself that I was only doing this because I intended to scold him for his idiocy, but I never actually reprimanded him for doing anything when his repair cycle was over. Patrols became a breeze and we'd often talk about random slag that came to mind. As time went on, the other Predacons seemed to become used to it and dismissed what we had as a close companionship.

They were right. We _were_ becoming close, and it was happening very quickly. Almost quicker than I was comfortable with. The reason I say _almost_ is because neither of us could really take the time to notice. We were still making eye contact and getting lost in one another's eyes though. If the rapid progression of our partnership didn't bother me, _that_ did.

Even with our _'friendship' _taking to the air, we would still meet each other's optics and lock gazes. The frequency at which we did this didn't lessen, but I sometimes still got the notion that they were happening more and more often. We would be conversing or maybe looking in each other's direction before, suddenly, I would find myself drowning in Waspinator's optics like they were azure oceans with rip currents that pulled me under where I couldn't breathe. Sounds stupid, right? I thought so. I would usually break the contact when our awkward staring matches started - _very_ often I did, because they made me so fragging nervous - but we never mentioned or questioned each other about it. A part of me was glad for that too. It was almost as awkward as trying to have a humane conversation with one of the arachnids, but it didn't put much of a hamper on our rapidly progressing friendship… emphasis on _rapidly. _

The _Darkside_ computers had detected a stasis pod landing in the northern most part of neutral territory. Grape Face - of _course_ - hatched another harebrained scheme of his just _moments_ after the pod crashed into the snowy plains. I had to wonder whether or not he had a backup drive in his head dedicated to spur of the moment planning. He probably did. Anyways, because Optimus Primal was the only flier in the Maximal group, he would be the fastest in reaching the pod. Waspinator and I were to be sent to the _Axalon_ to take him out before he could leave the base. Once he was down - Megatron emphasized on the word _terminated_, son of a glitch - my green companion and I would immediately report back to base for debriefing before leaving to retrieve the pod ourselves. The rest of the Maximals would have to leave on foot, leaving maybe only one other to guard their base. That would be where Megatron, Scorponok, and Tarantulas took it over.

Which was how Waspinator and I found ourselves hiding behind a rock just beyond the _Axalon's_ scanning range. I was beginning to see that this plan wasn't as glorified as Megs made it out to be. No surprise there.

Waspinator razzed low, uneasiness coming over him which he crouched low. "Wazzpinator glad he didn't become cop. Stakeoutzz are boring."

I snorted next to him, keeping my vision locked on the ship's still form in search of even the slightest movement. The sun had long since set several megacycles ago - it had also been four weeks since Waspinator and I had made our little deal and conjured our companionship - while peppers and crickets dominated the nighttime orchestra. A wild dog of sorts roared somewhere in the jungle a little ways away, though the sound hadn't issued forth again since. Our breathing was shallow even though we knew full well the Maximals wouldn't detect us, but old habits have a tendency to die hard. We didn't want risk alerting them to our presence and getting shot at. Even if Waspinator didn't, at least I had a moderately adequate sense of self-preservation… the flying mountain incident doesn't count. Bug off. My voice was quiet when I addressed my insect partner. "They don't allow Predacons to serve on the force anymore. Not since Proposition sixteen about three stellar cycles ago. It passed the ballot by ninety percent of the vote."

He buzzed and glanced over at me, blinking almost stupidly. Poor mech probably didn't follow up on politics before the Golden Disk heist like I had.

Subsequent to the creation of the Pax Cybertronia - a peace treaty made by the Autobots, signed by them and the defeated Decepticons - the Great Reconfiguration had taken place. The change was made mainly to save energy resources by reducing the size of our kinds' trademark massive bodies, turning Autobots into Maximals and Decepticons into Predacons. The great old Cybertron cities like Iacon and Kale were built over to accommodate our new forms.

Then life turned into a living Pitt for us Predacons.

In spite of to the fact Optimus Prime had specifically put all his time and energy into making the Pax Cybertronia's focus on freedom being the right of all sentient beings, Autobot or Decepticon, Maximal or Predacon, he didn't live long enough to make sure that vision would come to light. The Swarm, a massive cloud of black mass that had been created in some freak lab accident, became a huge threat when it wiped out all the Transformers stationed on Earth by effectively eating them alive. The cloudlike mass immediately began a headlong course for Cybertron and Optimus left the planet in an attempt to stop it. Opening the Matrix ended up being the only solution, but the resulting light hitting the pure darkness of the Swarm's life source caused a massive explosion.

It became known as the day Optimus Prime died to save Cybertron. It was also the day any hope for the Predacon faction died as well.

The Pax Cybertronia, ironically, was purposely misinterpreted by the Maximal government. Damn fraggers. Freedom being the right of all sentient beings was still written in the Pax Cybertronia, true, but an amendment added onto it without Predacon citizen consent stated that _'freedom'_ was what laws didn't prohibit. It was a dirty move on the Maximal Elders' part but, then again, they could do whatever the Pitt they wanted to now. All because Optimus had saved all of Cybertron, the minority second class had to suffer as a consequence.

There were seven Maximal Elders in total, each representing one of the seven major cities of Cybertron, but many Predacons were upset over the fact their rights were on the verge of being stripped because of their ancestry. It was how the Tripredicus Council was created. Not that they were any help to the Predacon population, of course. Damn slaggers. They didn't do anything to intervene with the bigoted and racist laws that started to pass. One of the major laws passed was that Predacon and Maximal sparklings were segregated in schools… or, at least, for what little Predacons schools there already were. The last major law to pass before Megatron organized his plan to steal the Golden Disk, it was illegal for Predacons to sign up for full bondmate benefits. They had to settle for domestic partnerships.

In other words, politics sucked if you were a Pred. _Life_ sucked if you were a Pred.

Waspinator's voice broke through my thoughts. "Predaconzz not be police anymore?"

"Nope." I nonchalantly shook my head and looked my gun over. I checked the energy reserves for what had to be the millionth time within the past ten cycles. I was hoping that Waspinator would only think that my repetitive actions as only being brought about because of boredom, but it was actually because I was a nervous wreck on the inside of my casing. I was nearly scrapped by Megatron for impertinence once and I didn't want to risk irking him again. Especially not so soon after my _previous_ little endeavor. "It wouldn't have been such a landslide election if more of the Predacons had voted. There was even a criminal investigation involving a Maximal power group threatening Predacons who tried to vote 'no' on the proposition. It didn't go very far because it was disregarded by the Elders."

Waspinator made a low hiss in the back of his throat. "Optimuzz would've been upset. Prime-bot would've never allowed thizz to happen to us."

"Maybe," I drawled. I straightened out and my voice dropped to a harsh whisper when I saw that the Axalon's main entry platform was lowering. "Look."

Waspinator followed my gaze. Standing on the _Axalon's_ half lowered podium was Dinobot, hunched down low and scanning the landscape with a hard expression. Beside me I heard my partner curse softly. I couldn't blame him. I felt rather stupid myself for not thinking that the Predacon traitor would be suspicious of the all too silent landscape. I held my breath and Waspinator did as well. After several tense moments, the ex-Predacon's eyes flashed a dark red before the lift began to rise back up into the base. After the hiss of the lift's mechanisms silenced, peepers and crickets resumed their night song without further interruption.

Waspinator was muttering. "Megatron wantzz to restart Great War so we can get our freedom back… But what happen if we'zz loose?"

I sighed dejectedly. "We go extinct."

There was movement from the _Axalon's_ lift again and Dinobot was still on it. This time though, Optimus Primal was with him. The platform lowered to the ground completely and the ape took off into the air. Gripping our guns in a death hold, my partner and I tensed immediately just as Optimus turned so he could address Dinobot. His back was facing us.

I hissed. _"Now."_

We both fired, but the sounds of our guns going off did nothing to alert Optimus to our presence. Waspinator's gun had a faster projectile speed than mine, but his aim was generally horrible. Surprisingly enough however, his hit his target dead-on. Optimus cried out and Dinobot shouted something about an ambush. By another stroke of luck, Waspinator shot the Predacon traitor rotator shield out of his hands.

"Oooooh!" He ducked back down behind the rock, his optics alit with enthusiasm, and I looked over at him with equally lit optics. Waspinator grinned and slapped his gun to his chest. "Wazzpinator got him!"

I screeched and let my grin nearly cut my face in half. "Watch _this!"_

I felt my expression darken. This was going to be _fun_. I narrowed my optics and activated my shoulder mounted cannons so that they unfolded from their hidden compartments to snap into an able firing position. Very, _very_ fun. The mechanisms inside whirred and I stood. It was an awful place to expose myself since I was left completely open, but I had to chance it or risk missing. Across the way, Dinobot saw me and dropped into a fighting stance, but I seized my opportunity and shot out a pair of twin blasts at Primal. The dumb Maximal leader seemed to recover from being stunned courteous of Waspinator's lovely shot, but the ape was hit square in the chest a moment later regardless. The gorilla mech was blown back with a serious wound decorating his chest. He still lived - I was positive of that much - but if we could hit him again…

I squawked, ducking back down and grinning. I fisted the air in front of me victoriously. "Yes!"

Waspinator razzed brightly. "Good shot, Terror-bot!"

Dinobot finally shot back.

There was a flash of green and an explosion over our heads. Dinobot had shot the cliff face my wingmate I had flanking our right… and Waspinator was closest to it. The explosion caught the both of us off guard to the point where I flinched and Waspinator's wings went erect in surprise, but it was only a small explosion. Making the mistake of presuming the attack was poorly calculated, we both looked away just before I heard rock rubbing against rock. Waspinator looked at the same time I did. The cliff face hadn't been shot by accident, and he hadn't missed his intended target at all. He had been aiming for a large boulder up there in an attempt to take the both of us out, sneaky bastard. It wasn't large enough to take us both out, but Waspinator _was_ unlucky enough to be right underneath the damn thing.

Waspinator had no time to move before the mass slammed down onto his unfortunate hide. There was a sharp crunch, followed immediately by silence.

I flinched back and lifted my arms up to cover my face in defense. When the rock actually hit y partner with a crunch, I unveiled my vision. My partner wasn't there, and only the hulking huge boulder replaced him. Ice surged through my circuitry. Waspy had been blown to bits before, but never crushed. How heavy _was_ that thing? Three tons? Was that heavy enough to cave in spark and processor casing? Were Waspinator's intake valves crushed? Was he hurt? Not just hurt as in _Waspinator-will-be-fine-when-he-wakes-up_ hurt, but _seriously_ hurt? My mind reeled, stumbled, and tripped all over its unorganized self in a futile attempt to make sense of the situation. In the distance, I could hear Dinobot shriek a defiant _"Yes!" _

Son of a mother fragger, if he _hurt_ Waspinator, I was going to kill him. I was too frazzled to come to terms with the gravity of my thoughts. I unclipped my handgun in slow motion and fired at the boulder without a second thought.

Rocks exploded outward when my shot destroyed the boulder in one hit. Either the rock was weak, or my weapon was overcharged. I hoped it was the earlier, because that meant that maybe the rock wasn't as heavy as I originally estimated. Maybe Waspinator would be fine. Thankfully, he was. He was laying on the ground sprawled on his back with his wings crushed underneath him. At first I thought he was unconscious, but then he moved… and suffered from an energon surge. His field dampeners had been damaged and he couldn't withstand the energon radiation in the area anymore. With the crackling of blue electricity dancing around his frame, he struggled to move. It was a valiant attempt - I had to give the bugger that much credit - but futile all the same. His voice was breathless, but also panicked. The wind as well as his sense of security had been knocked out of him. "Oh _no, _Wazzpinator in trouble…"

I crossed the distance between us and leaned over him. He didn't look hurt aside from the obviously crushed wings and energon surges. I tried to regulate it, but I still think that I sounded breathless. "We did our job, now let's go! Back to base!" I extended my hand to him in an almost dreamlike state, the same one I shook with him when we reintroduced ourselves to reignite our partnership. Waspinator reached out to grab a hold of my wrist. I grabbed his in a vice hold as a response before glancing up over the cover we had taken. Dinobot was still out in the open, yeah, but it would be a lot better to scram _now_ before the rest of the Maxis decided that they needed to join the party. I ducked back down and braced my legs before upping the power of my antigravs so that they maxed out to their fullest power output levels. I pushed off the ground and leapt into the air with a trademark screech.

"Cowards! _Face me!"_ Dinobot's battle cry didn't fall on deaf audios, but there was no way in the Pitt that I was going to do as he requested. Better to run and live than to fight and get your aft handed to you, in my opinion. I had to zip out of the way of the raptor's laser fire when his optical laser nearly seared my hide. Waspinator razzed, gripping to me for dear life and still sparking from his injuries. In spite of Dinobot's furious laser fire, we managed to get out of range of the _Axalon_ a few moments later. The nighttime song of peepers and crickets was replaced by cold evening wind rushing past our bodies. Our endeavor could have gotten better, but it still could have been worse. I was glad that it wasn't.

I was out of breath and panting, but I still had enough bearings and overall resolve to look down at my save. My voice was breathless. "You okay?"

"Wazzpinator fine," he said. As if fate was determined to show how much it hated him, he flinched in pain. Despite that, I felt confident he wouldn't have to be in the CR for more than a few cycles to repair the damage done. We both went silent for awhile. Out of the corner of my vision, I could see Waspinator watching the ground as it rushed underneath us. I kept my views locked on the sky. The stars were bright against the midnight black and there were only a few sparse clouds obscuring the sight of the planet's twin moons looming almost ominously overhead. I tried to focus on them. My mind was still flashing back toward everything that had conspired within the past few cycles. It all seemed to be going so smoothly… but then Waspinator was nearly hurt, and now I was barely able to focus on remembering which direction the _Darkside_ was in. I felt like I had been conked over the head with something heavy. I felt like I was forgetting something, but couldn't remember _what_ it was.

After what felt like forever, Waspinator's voice broke through my fruitless musing. "Why did Terror-bot do that?"

"Do what?" My mind was still reeling. Even I could hear the distraction in my voice.

Waspinator razzed somewhat impatiently in response. "Terror-bot came back for Wazzpinator before fight was over. Why Terror-bot do that?"

Why _did_ I do that? That's why I had that feeling that I forgot something, because technically I did. Why _did_ I help him? Why should _I _have cared? I could have left that damn klutz back there without risking my own hide to save his and, even then, he probably still would have been fine. I felt my face twist irritably. While we flew, I thought I saw a flash of green in the corner of my vision. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, I spoke. "…I, uh, need you for part two of the mission. No way in the Pitt I'll go alone and risk getting outnumbered by the Maximals if they show at the last cycle. And, um, it would be too risky to retrieve you later."

"But we'zz didn't destroy Ape-bot," Waspinator countered with a tight rasp. He knew just as much as I did that there was no _way_ the Maximal leader had been destroyed from the damage we did to him. I presumed that he figured that grape-face wouldn't be very happy over the failure.

I snorted. "He can go to the Pitt for all I care. You all right?"

He reminded me that I had already asked him about that. I cursed softly to myself realizing my mistake and turned away, not speaking to Waspinator again until we returned back to the base.

That was when it _really_ dawned on me that I saved him in the middle of a battle instead of hiding and retreating his pieces once it was all over and done with. That had never happened before. Ever. No one had ever cared about me before, so why was I suddenly feeling the urge to care about others? It scared me a little. What bothered me even more was that I had hadn't realized how innocently blue his optics were, how intelligent he really was, and that his green was less of a green and more of an emerald.

Upon returning to the base, he spoke again. "Thank you."

I didn't look at him. I slung his arm over my shoulder instead so I could assist walking him back into the base due to the injuries he sustained. "You're welcome."

I was right about Waspinator not needing too many repairs, despite my initial opinion that he had potentially been injured badly. He sat in the CR tank for no more than three cycles before we went into the control center to report back. Tarantulas and Scorponok stood on hover pads positioned beside Megatron from an angle, and Waspinator and I jumped onto hover pads of our own. We brought them in front of Megatron and I gave the report myself. Waspinator still had noticeable nicks and dents in his armor from not staying in the CR long enough to do a complete patch up and I was still panting from bringing him back. My voice was a collected tenor, but I could only hope that it wasn't wavering enough to let the other know that I was nervous. That had been the first time I had talked to Megs since my failed takeover.

"…We hit him pretty hard, but Dinobot kept us from killing him because he knocked a boulder onto Waspinator. I had to retrieve him but we were still in danger of being overrun. We had to make a tactical retreat."

"So, Optimus Primal was not destroyed," Megatron said slowly. He was definitely surprised when I mentioned saving Waspinator during the fight - the way the tyrant's mauve optics lit up was an immediate indication of this - but he recovered his usual mask of composure just as quickly. He leaned back in his throne. To me, it was a menacing gesture. His voice was cool and collected, but loathingly spiteful at the same time. "You disappoint me Terrorsaur, _yes."_

"But, we… We knocked him half to scrap!" My voice stuttered very noticeably and I could feel the tenseness of terror creeping into my circuitry. I blinked and my voice rose to cover my rising panic. "No _way_ he'll be flying anywhere!"

Megatron looked ready to interject, his face annoyed and his mouth twisting into a threatening and ugly frown - I was about ready to flinch back in terror as soon as I saw that murky stare - and I turned to Waspinator in a silent plead for assistance. The bug was already two steps ahead of me. Before I could completely face him, Waspinator interrupted before the tyrant could fit anything in. He spoke quickly and confidently. "Yes! We will beat them to the stasis pod _eazzily!"_

Megatron dropped the subject regarding our failure but he ordered us to carry out our second task… going to the crash site of the pod to ensure the robot inside was reprogrammed into a Predacon. The thought of trying to reprogram a protoform obviously miffed Waspinator judging by the confused expression that crossed his face upon its mention, but I had done enough reading and eavesdropping over Tarantulas' and Scorponok's shoulders to know that the most you had to do was extract the old program chip and replace it with a new one before the pod activated the protoform inside. I explained it to my partner when we got outside the _Darkside_ to fly north. "It can't be too hard," I said when we gained altitude and felt the air grow steadily colder. "Tarantulas loaned me one of his prototype chips. All we have to do is slip the thing into the programmer dock and take out the Maximal one out before the pod scans for a beast-mode."

"What if Maximals beat us to the pod?" He inclined my head to look at me.

I shrugged it off. "We fly faster than they can run."

But, of course, this claim was somehow jinxed. We had reached the pod first like I said we would - the both of us ended up finding the Maximals at one point trying to cross a natural bridge as a shortcut to the pod, though my partner and I dealt with them by destroying their only means across the icy ravine - but the hatch was smashed in from the crash. I had tried to open the lid while my wingmate zapped at the seam with my optical lasers. The stasis pod seemed comatose but there would be no telling if it survived the crash or not unless we could get it open. Our first priority was to make sure the protoform was still alive since it would be wasteful to attempt reprogramming a dead being.

In the amount of time it took us to nearly get it open, the Maximals showed up.

Megatron had followed suit thankfully, putting the odds in Predacon favor once more, but the tide turned when Grape Face attempted to make the Maximals back off by leveling his dinosaur head cannon at two Siberian tigers nearby. The Maxis did back off, yes, but they did so only just long enough for Waspinator and I to open the pod and find it empty. The protoform had upped and left, already being a Maximal, and one of the two tigers abruptly transformed and attacked.

In hindsight, we got our skid plates handed to us. This is why I hate cats. Damn fleabags. Our first pod hunting expedition came to an abrupt end and, to say the least, it was far from pleasant.

As soon as Megatron, Waspinator, and I returned to the base, the first thing my wingmate and I did was to sit on one of the overheads of the deck overlooking the lava pits below. The heat that rose from the liquid fire was welcoming in comparison to the bitter cold we had to endure for over a megacycle, so sitting by that warmth was the only part of the day I thought satisfying. Though Scorponok and Tarantulas had long since submerged themselves into CR chambers - according to Megatron, the expedition our leader lead against the Maximal base went wary just nearly as soon as it started - it left only the tyrant with Waspinator and I in the control center. Megatron didn't seem to be minding my partner and I though. We were to ourselves at the moment.

An aspect of our relationship that came out was that we were… being physical now.

I lazily leaned up against him while his arm draped over my shoulders in a comforting gesture. The whole while, I couldn't keep myself from violently shivering at the cold invading my ironically cold-blooded frame. Waspinator was much better off than I was, though. Although his body was more accustomed to warmer weather as well, his beast-mode could at least adapt and survive in harsh conditions. Mine, on the other hand, couldn't. My pterodactyl beast-mode was extinct for a reason, after all. The warmth from the lava rose upward and encased us in its heat while our feet dangled over the edge of the deck.

"That could've gone better," I muttered in an offhand tone.

He nodded and shuddered slightly His wings buzzed very lightly. "At least Wazzpinator not get blown up this time. Terror-bot and Wazzpinator not have to spend more time in freezing hellhole."

I laughed, a harsh and dry sound from my rattling frame, and we sat there together for a long time. After that and as more time went on, we got even closer. Predacons usually weren't ones for physical contact, but _we_ went as far as to occasionally set a hand on one another's shoulder from time to time. There would be friendly nudges and playful punches in the upper arm too, but there was still one thing that always stood out from the rest. There would be times during fights that Waspinator would go down but, before waiting for the fight to end or for the coast to clear, I would dive after him to get him out of harms way. My excuse for the change in style was because he was my friend and that going at the end of a fight to recover him would be too risky. Waspinator appeared to mostly accept this, but I couldn't. Something in the back of my head _screamed_ that my explanation was only half true.

We kept making eye contact. These times it was more intense than ever.

If it wasn't queer enough before, it certainly was _now_. We could be making fun of Cheetor or Scorponok for all we cared but then one of us would avert our gaze just enough that we would lock gazes. It was when our eyes would met that we would go silent, but it was also usually me that would tear my optics away first. For reasons that even _I_ couldn't fathom, our staring matches made me the most uncomfortable. Trying to reconstruct our conversation after these frequent occurrences was futile at most and new subject would emerge in an attempt to ignore the awkwardness of our unannounced competitions. It wasn't as if this mattered though… we would meet gazes once more later on no matter _how_ hard we tried to avoid it. It was inevitable, just like the intertwining of our fates. Bah. That makes me sound cheesy. I blame Grape Face and Dinobot. Fraggers. I'd flog their sorry skid plates into the Matrix if I still could.

Our silence was broken, but something else wanted to be broken as well. Something _far_ deeper. It was something that I wasn't comfortable enough to ask Waspinator about in regards to _why_ we kept staring into one another's optics the way we did, but I thought it would be as equally dumb a question as to why I was suddenly more determined about saving his sorry hide when he was scrapped.

Then I broke. Quite literally speaking.

While Waspinator was obviously the Maximals' favorite target for fights, he only usually lost _only_ one limb once every week or so. He could easily salvage it later and reattach it with my help on occasion, but he hadn't been fortunate enough to suffer from being blasted apart all at once. That was an occurrence that fate had left planned for _me_ when another stasis pod crashed down in the desert wastelands of our southern territory. The pod had come down quickly, rapidly descending through the atmosphere like a meteor - though, in hindsight, this comparison wasn't too far off - and Grape Face had sent Scorponok and our new recruit, Blackarachnia - recovered because of _my_ brilliant venture by the way, which I was already starting to regret - to retrieve it while putting my partner and I on standby. Megs had opted to keep Tarantulas at the base for reasons I could easily understand. No one wanted another potential Blackarachnia in our ranks. Considering the way Tarantulas programmed the widow's protoform, it was only a matter of whether he got his hands on another pod to do it again.

Of course, both Blackarachnia and Scorponok became indisposed of rather quickly. In other words, it was time to bring in the flyboys.

Waspinator and I veered off course from trying to form a perimeter around the crash site towards the epicenter of the sector. Megatron had contacted us moments before and filled us in that he had received twin distress signals from both Blackarachnia and Scorponok. As soon as we entered the main drop zone, Waspinator whirred past me and flew ahead to see where the stasis pod had fallen. A blast nicked him from behind before he could get far enough to even see it, though. Cheetor had been hidden well in the dusty landscape and neither of us would have never seen him if he hadn't shot at my partner. Big mistake on his part. Don't cats ever get tired of being stupid? No, obviously. Anyways, I spotted the freckled Maximal and opened fire just at the same time as Waspinator did. The cat shifted to beast-mode when he apparently suffered an energon surge and he ran off, darting in and out among the tall canyon rocks in a vain attempt to shake us off his tail.

I flew up to him and punched him in the arm. Waspinator turned his head to glance sideways at me with a questioning look and, just barely averting his gaze so we wouldn't lock optics, I made a gesture for him to go ahead so I could cut the cat off on the other side. Waspinator nodded back and went back to firing at the cheetah while I swerved away from him. I swooped up into the air and increased my speed, surging widely around past the rock formations while keeping my radar locked on Waspinator's position as he zipped after Cheetor though the maze. He continued his pursuit of the Maximal cat for another few cycles before the feline leapt over an energon geyser. I mentally flinched realizing where _this_ was going. Waspinator I thought nothing of it - the geyser probably didn't look immediately active at first glance - but then it erupted as soon as he was directly over it. Whether it was bad luck or just horrid timing was beyond me. Waspinator was unconscious from the energon surge clicks later. I watched from the air as Cheetor skidded to a halt, turned, and watched as my idiot partner dropped out of the sky like a bag of lead. An energon surge danced around Waspinator's hide for a brief moment, he tensed, and then he went still.

I was ticked.

I swooped down and shot Cheetor from behind, sending him flying into the nearest rock formation hard enough to knock him unconscious. I glowered at him dangerously before turning my head to look at Waspinator. He looked only lightly unconscious and I figured he was fine. There was no one else out there to run the risk of hurting him, so I figured it best to deal with the Maxis. I glanced back over at Cheetor's prone form and scoffed. "So much for Maximal _presence," _I said scathingly. Then, with a smirk, "Now the pod will be _mine!"_ With that, I took off into the air.

Perhaps I was just a little too confident… Okay, maybe a lot. Don't judge.

Trying to secure the pod was a mistake. I spotted Rhinox laying lifelessly by the pod in his beast-mode and I glided downward in my robot-mode to confront him. He opened his eyes and looked up helplessly at me when I approached. I mocked him and drew my gun, saying that this was my lucky day and his last, and it was when he closed his eyes that the hawk flew into range of the pod's scanners. The Maximal program chip was still in place. The pod scanned the bird and the Maximal inside was awakened. I shrieked my displeasure when the light started pooling from the pod, but then I had to shield my optics from the blast of light that followed. There was another shriek, but this time it wasn't mine. Although I couldn't see through the flash, there was a whoosh of air that carried across the landscape like a voice in a cave. When the light finally died down, I didn't need to see into the pod to know it was now empty.

I heard heavy footfalls against the canyon floor and looked over. Rhinox, still sporting his beast-mode, was righting himself back onto all fours. He looked at me defiantly with newfound confidence… son of a glitch. His voice was derisive. "Still feeling lucky, Terrorsaur?"

_'Frag no,'_ I thought bitterly. I didn't voice that particular opinion of myself, mind you, but it was enough of a distraction to keep me from hearing the oversized falcon swoop down behind me. By the time I recognized its shadow, it was too late.

The brown and tan feathered hawk, with a shriek almost as grating as mine, dove bombed me from behind and hooked her talons into my shoulders. My immense amount of surprise and the surge of artificial adrenaline that surged through my tubing kept me from feeling the initial pain. I dropped my pistol and squawked just as the female launched into the air with me in her grasp. I grunted and tried reaching up to grab her legs in an attempt to escape, but I couldn't move my damn arms high enough to find purchase.

Then she let me go. I would have whooped with triumph because of that… but my entire body crashing into the canyon wall she threw me against kept me from doing so. All the wind was knocked out of me as the femme hawk took off into the air. I fell heavily to the ground, slamming my chest against the ground hard enough to knock another round of air out of my intake valves. I felt darkness creep into the corners of my vision in a threat to drag me into unconsciousness, but my stubborn sense of wounded pride forced me to regain my bearings and right myself up. I forced my body to stand on its slightly unsteady feet, shook my head to clear my scrambled senses, and then I finally found that I had enough air left in my chest to furiously screech my disdain to being handled so roughly. I activated my shoulder cannons so that they flipped into place and I turned sharply on my heel before shooting into the air after the new Maximal with my weapons blazing.

Instead of blackness invading my vision, it was replaced with scarlet. I was _mad. _

For the first few clicks of the fight, it was more of a chase. The femme dodged the rapid blasts I shot, flying behind several of the tall rocks that jutted from the ground to avoid getting hit, but my rising temper made me more and more determined to see her scrapped the more I missed. The eagle flittered behind another rock but, this time, my aim was accurate enough to cause damage. I hadn't hit her directly - unfortunately - but the pulse blast I fired hit the rock she dove behind. Rubble from the exploding stone hit her - she screeched in pain when this happened - and I felt a triumphant smirk cross my features. Damn Maxi got what was coming to her. Her edge lost, the femme flew into the air and gave another cry before diving down towards the ground again. The speed was too fast for me to follow her movements. I stopped in midair where the female had been moments before, and I snapped my head back in forth across the expanse of the canyon below in an attempt to regain sight of her. I couldn't. I felt my frustration boiling under my metallic skin… at least my anger didn't distract me enough from hearing the steadily rising whoosh of large, flapping wings. I looked up hearing the noise and gapped.

The hawk flew down, her figure obscured by the setting sun, and her voice reached my audios. "Airrazor… _Maximize!"_

The damn femme practically came out of nowhere. In a disgusting use of human terms, the slag hit the fan. Lucky me.

Her body shifted and transformed, revealing her small and lithe body, and then she propelled herself straight at me. She wanted to play chicken? Fine. I could do that, and I wasn't about to let a newly reawakened Maximal, flier wannabe beat me at my element in the skies. If there was going to be a top flier on that godforsaken dirtball, it was going to be _me_. I lunged for her right back. Neither of us backed out. With a crash, we collided with one another and went into a spiraling freefall.

_Falling. _

That was something that I did _not_ settle well with.

At first, I tried to ignore the wind roaring past my face and the buzz of my online computers telling me that I was falling. I went for the femme's throat and she went for mine. Any other flier in my position would have probably taken in the possibility of biting her face off or at least admiring her looks as a femme, but that was the last thing on my mind. In fact, I had to force myself very hard not to panic and force myself away from her the moment we starting to plummet through the sky. The possibility of crashing with her into the ground with her on the bottom so that I could kill her? Not a chance in the _Pitt_. I _hated_ falling… was _horrified_ of it. For any flier to be afraid of falling is just as embarrassing as you can imagine it is. The cause of my phobia was a long story that'll get explained later. Right now, it's now important.

They both swooped away from one another, me being noticeably less gracefully than the hawk Maximal. We were both around a hundred feet from the canyon floor, putting maybe ten feet away from one another while I faced her down. My cannons were still drawn, giving me an edge right away, and I fired twice. Airrazor ended up being _too_ graceful, dodging every one of my furious blasts before whipping about and aiming her arm at me. A compartment above her wrist flipped open and she fired her own pulse blast. Her aim was dead accurate and I had no time to avoid it. The shot hit me square in the chest, blasting off me left shoulder cannon in the process, and the whiplash made me turn my back on her in midair. I was too stunned to realize my potentially fatal mistake. You _never_ turn your back on an opponent. Not unless you want to die.

Stupid me, I wasn't able to regain my scrambled senses in time and the damn femme flier blasted me in the back again before I could turn to face her. The shot sent me spiraling towards the ground to my immense horror - my core processor spooked so badly that it wouldn't have been surprised if I died of the first half my namesake right there and then - and then she open fired again with another set of weapons. Females with wrist mounted automatic missile darts are a very bad thing, by the way. _Especially_ when you get hit by the shots with full force. Full, _painful_ force.

I don't remember much after that, but I think Waspinator's scream was louder than mine.

Then, good Primus, there was the _pain_.

Ever been dumped into a pit of acid? No? I never was either, but I'll bet my wings that it felt just as bad. I felt like someone had taken smelt eating plasma and dumped it all over my hide… right after they tore every limb off my body. Everything was total chaos. Everything went offline, aside from the pain, and then everything came back screaming. Louder than I usually do, and that was something that scared me more than the pain. I couldn't even keep track of all the emergency data that swamped my vision for the one split second that it did, and then it all went dark again from shorting out. The pain remained however.

Was I screaming? Was I awake? I don't know. All I knew was the pain and how much of it I was in. Then there was the wind.

It was moving over my face and body. It totally defied the fact that I thought I should have been blown to pieces, but that was beside the point. Was I still falling? Maybe I was. That horrified me.

_"Oh Primus, don't let me fall, don't let me fall, don't let-"_

Was that me? Like I said, I don't remember much. What I do remember, though, is the pain when it ended. There was a warmth and someone whispering something to me before a flash of brilliant emerald flashed across my vision. Then all that remained was calmness.

The darkness lingered for quite sometime. Then I resurfaced.

My optics snapped open and I was met with the white brilliance of the inside of a CR chamber. I was in robot-mode, all in one piece, and _alive_. I was so caught off guard that I spooked and reeled when the CR lift started to rise from beneath me. In moments, I was exposed back to the life of the command center. I gasped and strained to sit up on the lift as CR fluid dripped off my sore hide.

A voice addressed me. "Well, that took long enough, yesss."

I had to bite back a sarcastic reply, keeping my gaze on the grated lift beneath me while I stayed on my hands and knees. "What happened?"

Surprisingly, Scorponok's voice - slightly muffled, albeit - piped up. "New flier Maximal shot you down and blew you to scrap. Waspinator salvaged the pieces and called me in as backup to put you back together. You were hurt bad, so he airlifted you back to base. Saved your sorry, skid plate."

That was probably something that amused the both of them, because Megatron stifled a small chuckle and I could only imagine that Scorponok was following suit with him. When I finally managed to find my feet and stand, I was met with the sight of Megatron sitting in his throne watching me. He turned to address me and completely fill me in. My repair cycle had been delayed for a few megacycles that same day when a new stasis pod fell and when our power went out to keep us blind as to where it fell. Scorponok was working on it, but Grape Face had a very distinct feeling that it was entirely Tarantulas' fault… and he was more so convinced considering that the treacherous freak tried to steal the once undamaged stasis pod from the site of the new pod crash. The new protoform had been successfully programmed into a Predacon because of him, yes, but the ant had a serious programming error that made him think that he was an actual ant. When Tarantulas stole the stasis pod and tried to bring it to his lair, the new Pred followed him. Tigertron somehow managed to get involved and he blew the stasis pod up. Then Primal came along and blew the ant up. Inferno, as he was called, had been put in a CR chamber to be restored. Tarantulas had gone missing, and no one even _knew_ where Blackarachnia was.

I asked about how long I was unconscious.

Megatron shrugged. "A few days, at best. I didn't keep track."

_"Because you're a fragger, you son of a…"_ I thought bitterly, trailing off to end my mental seething in case I said any of it accidently outloud. Then, outloud, "Where's Waspinator?"

"Patrol," he answered coolly.

"This isn't our normal patrol, time," I said, raising an optical ridge questionably.

"He's taken on the brunt of both yours and his duties ever since your accident," Grape Face replied with a minor frown tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Patrols were extended to make up for your absence."

"As useless as that was," another voice interrupted. Both Megatron and I looked over and saw a pair of legs sticking out from underneath a console. Scorponok was obviously rewiring something, although I could have cared less as to what. He didn't move from his position and kept working with complete disregard to me. Whatever it was the glitch head was doing, he was completely engrossed in it.

Megatron smirked down in his general direction. He was still talking to me when he spoke next, but didn't bother bestowing me with his ugly mug directed at me. "We've had four territory breaches since you went out. As much as I hate to say it, it will be good to have you back and fully operational. "Yes…"

I was glad he wasn't looking at me. I sneered and felt my face twist irritably. I suppose that I should have taken what he said as a compliment, but I still couldn't help but feel angered that he was disrespecting my partner so horribly. Waspinator had _saved_ me, and here this fragger was shrugging him off as a useless pawn for just a few mistakes. Hadn't Waspinator taken on my duties as well as his own in order to assure that our entire operation wouldn't fall out from underneath Megatron's feet? So _what_ if there were a few small security breaches? So _what_ if Waspinator was a klutz? So _what_ if he couldn't speak in first person? Waspinator was courageous for the things he had done for me, and it made me mad to know that Megatron could disregard him so cruelly.

The monitors blipped to signal that there was an approaching Predacon signal approaching the base. At first we thought it was one of the arachnids judging by how slow the blip was moving… but a scan quickly revealed that it was actually Waspinator, speak of The Fallen. I didn't even ask to dismiss myself. I hightailed it out of them to meet him. Megatron didn't call out to stop me. I left the control room.

I flew out of the _Darkside's_ main entrance and landed on a solid slab of hardened lava. Trying to pick out Waspinator from the landscape was easy enough, because the emerald of his armor stood out drastically against the black of the hardened lava rocks in the field. At first I figured that he probably got into a minor scuffle with Rattrap or Cheetor, but then I noticed that there weren't any normal laser burns on his hide. His did have an annoying looking limp though, which suggested to me that he had been walking for a long time. That bothered me. Why would he be walking when he was a flier?

That was when it finally occurred to me that I couldn't see the partially transparent outline of his wings. They were _gone_.

This bothered me a relatively great deal, despite the fact that I wasn't the one in Waspinator's position. My emerald partner had been a helicopter back on Cybertron while I was a jet. Loosing his ability to fly wouldn't nearly bother Waspinator as much because he wasn't initially _born_ programmed flier. I was. Taking away a natural programmed flier's ability to fly is basically similar to taking the instinct to hunt out of, I don't know, a wolf or something. If you took it from a domesticated dog, the dog would probably care less. If it couldn't hunt, it could still settle for being fed by its master. Wolves wouldn't be so lucky. Get it? It wasn't disturbing me that I cared about Waspinator's wellbeing. The fact that he was missing his wings bothered me.

I knew there was only one fragger who could have done that to him and known its significance. Taking out any flier's wings was a sign of huge disrespect, executed mostly by other fliers themselves. Waspinator had tried to engage Airrazor. Waspinator… tried to _avenge me._

Airrazor, unfortunately, won.

As I watched with mounting anger - towards the femme, not my partner - I watched as Waspinator got closer. He looked miserable, keeping his head downcast as he struggled to make it back to base. It occurred to me that it must have taken him so long to get back not because he was walking, but because he probably had to frequently shift to beast-mode and crawl until his systems were stable enough for him to transform and walk again. From what I could see of his downturned face, it was contorted miserably.

"_Waspinator!" _

At least the poor guy's hearing wasn't shot, lucky for me. He snapped to attention hearing my voice cut through the air and looked up in my direction. I stared back at Waspinator when our eyes locked.

He stood thirty or so feet from me across the lava field - the patch we were standing on was hardened rock, so we were in no danger of the lava flows - and we found ourselves instantly engaged in another one of our staring matches. His blue optics were intense while he stared back into my own scarlet ones. It was usually me who broke our staring matches, but this time it was him… only because he lunged for me. Aside from how obviously tired he was, he sprinted the entire distance between us and wrapped his arms around my neck when he reached me. He buried his face against my shoulder. For a moment, I savored the feeling of his form pressed against mine. It was a thought I quickly shoved aside, though slightly less quickly than I was comfortable with. All he seemed to care about was that I was all right. That was all he gave a damn about right there and then.

I recoiled slightly, taking a step back when Waspinator swung his arms around my neck and held me. Finally, after an awkward moment, I wrapped my own arms around his upper torso and buried my pale face against his own shoulder. Screw it. I was glad he was all right too. He could have ended up like me engaging Airrazor the way he did. I was glad he hadn't been.

We had been physical with one another before, but this was something new all the same. We stood together like that for sometime and I felt Waspinator tracing his fingers over the nape of my neck. That was a place where my I could only imagine that my head had been blasted off my body during my scuffle with Airrazor. I was caught off guard by the touch but then I realized I was caressing one of the spots where Waspinator's wings had been shot off.

We broke apart, both with some reluctance and relief. That embrace had made me particularly uncomfortable and I hoped that Waspinator wouldn't be able to see it in my face. Waspy seemed distracted, and I wondered if he was maybe feeling the same things I was. Either way, I smirked at him lightly and turned away to walk back to base. I could hear Waspinator's footfalls as he followed after me, though we went in silence. Another issue altogether, we also avoided optic contact.

Then Waspinator stopped. I couldn't hear him following him anymore.

I turned back to Waspinator when I heard him stop, raising an optic ridge at him. True to what I presumed, he _had_ stopped. The mech was looking off to the side to purposely avoid my gaze. For a brief moment, I had to wonder whether or not his limp was hurting him now that he had sprinted to get to me. "What is it?"

If I had the wings - wings that, thankfully, would be able to get easily repaired with a short round in a CR - they probably would have been erect with nervousness I could feel radiating off his body. After what looked to be an agonizing moment, he sighed lightly and swallowed hard. For some reason at the same time, my fuel pump pumped faster and my spark skipped a pulsation. I could only imagine that Waspinator's did the same. "…Terror-bot want to go with Wazzpinator to mountain in sector Tanna-16 to watch sunset? Izz pretty-"

To be blunt, his address was more or less the equivalent of asking someone out. _Me_ out.

Instead of feeling repulsed that my wingmate was asking me of such a thing, I merely only smirked feeling mirth build up in my spark. My lips curled up slightly and his optics narrowed playfully. "Why are you asking _me?"_

Waspinator didn't look sure of what else he wanted to say, and he initially didn't. The poor guy probably wasn't even sure _why_ he asked me to go with him in the first place. We were friends - two of them getting ridiculously close, I'll admit - and I found myself repeatedly telling myself that over and over again in my head. My mind reeled slightly when I realized that I wasn't doing a very good job of sounding convincing to myself and, for whatever reason, the mere term _'friend'_ didn't seem to fit anymore. It in no way felt right like calling him my emerald angel.

That was the first time I thought of him that way.

Waspinator continued to stare off to his direct left so that he didn't have to look at me head on. He stood there silently for a few more clicks and I decided to break the silence for him. I smiled at him, and it wasn't one of my trademark semi-sarcastic smiles either. Waspinator still didn't move, and then I reached forward to ruffle the top of his head in a playful manner like he was a sparkling. Waspinator still didn't look at me, but I swore that a slight blush envelop his features. My hand, despite itself, lingered for perhaps longer than it should have.

Looking back on it now, it hadn't been long enough.

"Consider it a date."

I didn't need to be one of his closest friends to know that his spark was leaping in his chest. His face brightened up considerably, blue optics flashing vibrantly, and that much was enough of a dead giveaway to his happiness. Seeing him happy made me happy too. I smiled at him.

We went back inside and the poor bastard sat in the CR for a few cycles so that his wings could regenerate. When Waspinator reemerged, I was waiting next to the tank for him. With his wings back in their rightful place, we went to the command center and both asked for a leave to retire to Tanna-16. Grape Face really didn't have much of a say on whether or not he could keep us in the _Darkside_ - we weren't on duty and it wasn't any of his damn business as to what we did - so the glitch head let us go. We still had a curfew to abide to though but, seeing the time it was then and the time we needed to return, we still had a decent five megacycles to ourselves. It took us about twenty cycles to get to Tanna because it was on the furthermost part of Predacon territory. Getting there was a pain in the aft, but the trip was definitely worth while.

The dirtball we landed on was a hassle, yeah, but seeing Tanna for what it was made dealing with the frustrating organics and energon radiation worth it.

Tanna-16 had a huge mountain in the center of the sector and it was the most gorgeous organic paradise I had ever seen. I originally first caught a brief glimpse of it while Waspinator and I were on patrol, but I honestly hadn't cared much for it. I didn't care about a lot of things back then, but even then I had to cave and admit that the little dust ball we found ourselves on wasn't _nearly_ as bad as I first thought. The grid was surrounded by a forest and was complete with a large lake that rested at the foot of the main mountain. Without a doubt, it had the best view of the sunset you could ever see. While the Maximals were more eastward and got an excellent view of the sunrises, our territory was more westward. This gave us the best view of the sun's setting.

Now that I was really seeing it for the first time and not just glancing at it, I saw how beautiful it really was. My partner and I both hovered above the sector and I let out a long whistle. I couldn't find anything else to say. I was lost for words.

He buzzed. "Wazzpinator likes it."

I grinned. "I do too. C'mon, I bet I can out fly you down to that lake!" I stopped flapping my wings and I dove downward. It wouldn't even _occur_ to me until later that I let myself freefall, despite my unprofound terror of it and heights. Wind rushed past my face as I neared the lake to the point where it probably would have seemed as though I was bound to hit it… but then I pulled up as the last possible second and swooped up gracefully into the air. I flapped my wings and landed in the tree overlooking the water. I squawked, shifted to my robot-mode, and looked around. Waspinator hadn't followed me. I glanced up into the air and saw that he was still hovering there. What was he waiting for? An invitation? "Hey! What are you waiting for, an invitation!"

He seemed to snap back into awareness and out of his thoughts, wherever they were. He looked in my general direction. "Wazzpinator coming!" He flew down to the tree overlooking the pristine lake, landing on the branch next to me. The wood groaned beneath us slightly from our weight, but my scanners indicated that it would be strong enough to hold… I hoped. He stayed in beast-mode.

I was grinning "Slowpoke."

Waspinator snorted and swatted my arm with a spindly black wasp paw. His eyes sparkled. "Wazzpinator has faster reflexes."

"Say that to the shots you couldn't dodge when you were blown to scrap."

I laughed and he laughed too. Then, without as much as a warning, Waspinator pushed me off the branch. I was too caught off guard and surprised to retaliate and fly back up. I fell into the icy water with a loud splash, making the surface of the lake sparkle and ripple in the sunlight like a glassless mirror. Adrenaline surged through my body as quickly as the chill of the water and instantly I was flapping manically attempting to right myself and make it back to the surface. An attempt, unfortunately, less dignifiedly said than done. Out of instinct and after the initial shock, I managed to right myself and find my way back to the surface. My head broke the surface, I whipped about and looked accusingly up at the tree where Waspinator was. The insect was laughing at me… or, rather, it was playful sniggering. Either way, he wasn't being cruel. I could tell when someone was, and cruelty was an aspect of personality that I didn't think Waspinator was physically capable of. The wasp seemed to notice my glaring at him and stifled his laughing. He probably thought I was angry with him.

I smirked.

Waspinator gulped audibly and backed away from the edge of the branch. My smirk broke into an uncontrolled grin and, quickly intaking air through my olfactory sensors and holding it, I let myself sink out of view. I was used to the temperature water now and this time I was focused enough to actually attempt swimming… something, albeit, that I hadn't tried on the planet yet. Not to gloat, but I actually wasn't too bad… okay, _fine_. I _am_ gloating. Old habits die hard, all right? My vision was clear enough looking through the water that I could make out the shadow of the tree branch where Waspinator was perched, and I managed to swim over to it before activating my antigravs and shooting upward. I erupted through the water and shot up behind Waspinator where he was perched. He didn't initially notice me, but he certainly did when I screamed in his audio.

"_AIRRAZOR'S A GLITCH!"_

Waspinator screeched in surprise and he lost his grip on the branch. I watched gleefully as he fell into the water with a loud splash before the poor sap could get his wings to work. He shrieked with surprise and failed around violently in the same way I had. I laughed brightly. The mech was hopeless, but that made him _him_. I wouldn't want to change that for the world. With a victorious shriek, I leapt up, twisted around into the air, and dove in after him. I hit the water headfirst and the splash it produced was enough for Waspinator to finally determine exactly where the surface was. Through the water, I could see him flip around and shift into his respectful robot-mode. I held my breath. Above me, the ripples on the lake surface turned calm and I watched Waspinator turn and twist around in the water looking for me when I immediately resurface. I took his jerky movements of panic as my cue to erupt back up. Waspinator shrieked in surprise when I jumped on him and pulled him under. To outsiders, the gesture might have looked violent… but, in reality, it was _playful_. We proceeded to play wrestle about in the water like sparklings.

For a moment, I forgot we were soldiers. For a sweet while, there was no one else beside me and Waspinator. A red slab of garbage and a stunning piece of emerald artwork.

Diving in and out of the water, wrestling about, and even diving to the bottom, we occupied ourselves with the sparkling lake until we dragged ourselves out suffering from intense water log. Completely spent, we both collapsed on the shore lying side-by-side in the late afternoon sun. I sprawled myself out on my stomach beside Waspinator while my partner shifted onto his back to state concededly up at the sky. His threw his hands behind his head and crossed his legs nonchalantly. The way the lighting was playing off his armor made his usually dull green sheen an emerald hue. Occasionally, he pointed out clouds to me when he thought they resembled something. One of which was Megatron's damned rubber ducky - which I promptly sniggered at - but then my focus on reality started to wane. I don't know when I fell asleep, but that wasn't important. All that was important was what I dreamt about.

Hands. They were all over me. I didn't know where I was or what in the Pitt's name was going on, but I was pinned under something heavy and loving it. Usually I would never take kindly to being grounded because of my severe paranoia of being unable to fly alongside my crippling sense of claustrophobia, but that didn't matter. Skilled hands were working up my chassis, around my sensitive cables, probing and pinching deliciously. It didn't matter that I didn't know who was touching me, because I was arching and straining into those touches without consent or fear. I wasn't afraid. I suppose that any normal mech would have - especially me, granted the awful atrocities I had to endure back on Cybertron - but that wasn't the case. I felt _safe_. _Whole_.

Then those talented hands were running over my chest in the general area just above my spark. If I hadn't been dreaming, I would have instantly tensed and forced myself to flee. However, here I didn't. The fingers probed and I let them. Finally, I could feel that my spark was revealed. I reactivated my optics.

The darkness of the room wasn't scarlet, which it should have been given that the light that would have been thrown out from my spark was red. Instead, the entire blackness had been replaced by a bright green. Emerald. Out of the corner of my vision, I saw huge feathered wings. Not hawk wings. These were far bigger and broader.

I felt that the hands on my chest had tips, resembling claws. I only knew of one mech who had hands like that.

I started to return back to awareness, and the brilliant emerald that had once blinded me began to fade back into reality as my optics - the ones of my physical form - reactivated. The sensation of the hands on my chest turned ghostly before lifting entirely. It was a highly unnerving sensation. I looked up, chancing seeing the winged mech, but he was gone. All I was met with the blue of the sky. How had I gotten there, again? Something landed with a thud next to my head and I looked. Waspinator, in all his emerald glory, was in beast-mode dropping a bloodied dead rabbit next to my head. I remembered where I was in an instant, although that didn't stop me about thinking about Waspinator's hands. I felt my face turn hot and prayed that he wouldn't see the blush devolving on my face.

I looked back down a the dead hare. I could see the incisor marks where Waspinator's beast-mode jaws had grabbed hold of it. That was when I was given a very uncomfortable reminder that my own beast-mode's stomach was empty. I really must have been in the CR chamber for quite sometime, because that was when I realized exactly how famished I was. I felt like I could have eaten an entire elk or something. Despite being a Cybertronian and, once upon a time, needing only to refuel on energon, having an organic beast-mode was a hassle because you had to feed that too. I felt a touch of affection for Waspinator realizing that he had gone out of his way to catch me something. I glanced back up at him. He looked indifferent - or maybe that was just his beast-mode's usual expression, I don't know - and his wing twitched. He tilted his head to the side.

I sat up and shifted to beast-mode. I eyed the dead organic for a moment before I shyly inclined my head to Waspinator just barely. My voice was a mere mutter and probably would have been almost entirely inaudible if my partner didn't strain his hearing. "I could use some help with this…"

He dropped his antennas apprehensively. After a click or two, the giant wasp slowly took a hesitant step forward and took a part of the rabbit's leg in his mandibles. I took a hold of a shoulder with my upper beak and, like two predators sharing a single prey, we tore it in half. We ate mostly in silence - messily mind you, and Waspinator had the hilarious habit of making odd _nomnom_ noises when he ate - before we retired back to the water to wash the blood and bits of fur off. I perched on a small boulder, dipped my beak into the water, and I brought it back out before running my claws over the length to get the blood off. Waspinator tried to follow my elegant example and do something similar but, courteous of his general idiocy and lack of sufficient coordination, he fell into the water.

Once that was taken care of, we took to the air and headed for the actual mountain that sat in the dead epicenter of Tanna-16. The sky had turned a deep pink that changed to an orangey red where the sun was positioned. We circled it twice in the air before we found a suitable spot to land on a ledge at the entrance of a cave. We were about two thousand or so feet up from the ground.

Then sun was starting to descend in the distance and, although not a full sunset yet, it was still stunning. The sky was painted hues of orange and pink and the landscape below was caught in the colors. The lake shimmered a sparkling carroty yellow and the treetops in the forest glowed a light ginger. I shifted to robot-mode with a whistle and I commented to Waspinator that it really was a pretty sight. He buzzed, flattered by the remark, and sat on the edge of the cliff. I was apprehensive to follow because of my fear of heights, but I sat himself next to him regardless. Out of instinct, I nervously peeked over the cliff's edge to judge the height. I hoped Waspinator didn't notice. It was only later that I realized it, but I was sitting closer to him than you would usually sit next to someone.

My fuel pump throbbed anxiously in my chest. Sitting so high up on the cliff made me nervous, yeah, but sitting next to Waspinator as close as I was also made me feel partially unnerved as well. We sat in silence for a few cycles before I thanked Waspinator for inviting me out with him. Waspinator didn't hear and asked me to repeat what I said.

"I said thanks for inviting me out here."

"Oh. Well… Thankzz for coming with Wazzpinator."

We went silent again, watching the sun set in the distance, and that seemed to the end of it. The silence continued on for a few more moments and I found it relaxing to a degree. The burning sun of a star continued to descend and it turned from a golden orange to a brightening light red. The sky changed with it, turning the pinks to orange to a deep scarlet red. The clouds were stained pink and a flock of birds flew underneath them like black blots on a canvas. I shattered the silence when I next spoke.

"You know Waspy, you were right when you said that cloud looked like Megatron's rubber ducky. I swear, there is nothing more deformed or _ugly_ in this entire universe. Why the slaggin' Pitt does he even _keep_ that thing!" I cleared my throat and screwed up my face. _"My name is Megatron, yesss. I love acting stupid and talking like a total idiot who pretends to be smart. I like to snuggle with my rubber ducky because it is squeaky, floats on water, and has a no CPU processor just like me! Rubber ducky, you're the one! You make bath time lots of fun-"_

Whether or not it was my expression, my voice impression of Megatron, or my absolutely _horrendous_ singing, Waspinator burst out laughing. The wasp Predacon fell backward, held his sides, and nearly cried because he was cackling so hard. I was worried that he would choke or explode if he didn't force himself to stop when he did. After sometime, the mech found the strength to sit up again. There were tears pricking blue optics and he forced his laughing to be reduced to random, irregular giggling. I smiled at him and Waspinator smiled right back. He turned back to the sunset snickering every so often.

Something drastic changed.

An unseen force in the air shifted and I was sure I would have broken out into gooseflesh if I was organic. I couldn't stop _looking_ at him. When I tried to follow his gaze and watch the sunset, it felt as though the neck gears had fused together. It was as if the energy around us grew both hot and cold at the same time. It confused me but I attempted to brush it off even when my spark felt as though it skipped a beat. Waspinator seemed to detect the change as well. His field of vision had drifted back towards me again - he was probably intending to ask how I had found out about Megatron's rubber ducky, if my presumption was correct - but he stopped short when he noticed I looking straight back at me. His expression dropped in a quizzical manner. His optics were brightened warmly in the glow of the setting sun as he and I made eye contact. The air shifted again, turning warmer, but the intensity of our stare increased to the breaking point. Whatever it was between us that wanted to be broken was an inch, perhaps a _millimeter_ from being shattered forever. No more than three clicks ticked by but neither of us had said or done anything.

The barrier was suddenly shattered. It would remain broken forever.

I very, _very_ slowly leaned forward several centimeters. It was only noticeable unless you were _really_ paying attention, but it wasn't as if I was doing it on my own accord. Something - and I was never quite sure what - seemed to draw me closer to Waspinator than I was comfortable with. My partner recoiled somewhat, more likely than not unsure of what I was doing, and the upper part of his left wing twitched nervously.

He leaned forward as well.

I tried to keep my face as neutral as a possibly could as he returned my earlier gesture. Waspinator leaned forward as well, probably even before he could even bring himself to fully understand what he was doing. He looked very deep in thought, almost entranced. Either that, or the lighting was playing tricks on me. I tensed and felt the muscles of my beast-mode's wings and other organic patches tighten to bring themselves closer to my body so they stiffened against my frame. What was going on now became inevitable and I found myself, to my own surprise, not taken aback. Why had I felt that this was going to happen sooner or later? I shouldn't have been surprised. I wasn't surprised actually, but I was still anxious.

Our shadows trailed out behind our seated bodies as long, tall silhouettes against the steep rock wall of the mountain. Our frames were engulfed in the fiery brilliance of the sun. We knew this, yeah, but we ignored it. Nothing mattered now except for the intense look we gave one another with our not so silent silence. Our actions spoke louder than anything and it wasn't quite silence anymore. Waspinator edged even closer, his large blue optics gazing back at what I could only presume were my very hesitant red ones. We were inches apart, literally breathing on each other as the sun continued it's decent into the night. It was then that he offlined his optics, letting his mandibles part just barely. I shuddered and, in turn and almost without even thinking, I dimmed my own. I was too paranoid to completely deactivate them - we were on the side of a cliff face, after all - and I'll admit that I was nervous. Afraid actually, but I leaned forward regardless. My mouth parted and I tilted my head to the side. I couldn't close the distance. I couldn't will myself to.

…He _kissed_ me.


	2. Act II

**ii**

Waspinator closed what little distance remained between us and pressed his mouth against mine. Hot energon boiled up under my mechanical skin on my face and I blushed just as my spark skipped at beat. All the while, Waspinator's wings went slightly more rigid. For a brief moment, the kiss had little movement. Just clicks after it started though, Waspinator melted right into me, the wasp gently leaning forward more and opening his front mandibles just slightly to run them over my perfectly formed lips. It felt very nice actually, but…

I could barely comprehend what was happening now. I couldn't believe Waspinator was actually _kissing_ me! I mean, I always knew there was something up with the damn clutz - I knew that from the first moment I laid my optics on him and his on me - but I never thought it would lead to _this_. He was my friend - and probably the only one I'd ever had that meant this much to me - but I doubted that there could ever be anything romantic!

…That was _my_ mistake, really. It was far too obvious that was what wanted to be broken when it came to our silence.

I shivered slightly and leaned back, uncharacteristically submissive towards my younger wingmate. I was embarrassed enough, even _if_ no one was watching us - though I had a nagging feeling someone _was_, as silly as that sounds - and I couldn't help but to not kiss back at first. I kept my optics online ever so slightly as Waspinator kissed me. I was still incredibly nervous and continued to leave my optics online just ever so slightly as if the other Predacon would reject me at a moment's notice. Would he be upset if I was too afraid to kiss him back? Truth be told actually, this was my first kiss… at least, the first kiss I ever had where there was a sense of actual affection behind it. There had been other times on Cybertron where I had a few prostitutes that had kissed me, but this… this felt so much different. It was tense, true, but I felt glad _he_ was kissing me. And this was still _Waspinator_ I'm talking about.

But he was still so much better than I was. I wasn't kissing back, I realized, because I was afraid he was going to reject me for some reason. It sounds absurd, I can understand that much, but what was I in comparison to him? I wasn't worth scrap. I was _never_ worth scrap.

Seemingly reading my mind, he seemed to realize how uneasy I was. Gingerly, Waspinator slowly moved his arm towards me. I wanted to flinch away, afraid what he was going to do and images of what happened to me during my early Cybertronian years being abused flashed through my head. I was tempted to reel away out of instinct alone but, for reasons beyond me, my body refused to listen to my screaming mental processes. To more or less of my surprise though, he let his hand trail down my right arm. He shifted it up, rubbing my compacted arm wing, and then back down again almost as if to coax me out of my overwrought state.

He traced his fingers over my arm's compacted arm wing and I shuddered, turning my optics offline entirely. Even though I was on the edge of the high cliff, I found that I trusted Waspinator enough to close my optics and get lost in whatever it was that we were doing. I _trusted him. _I never felt that way for any Cybertronian before. I kissed him back then. I wasn't entirely sure how to move my lips against his seeing how awkwardly shaped his mouth was, but I at least tried. For a first time effort too, I think I did a good job. I leaned forward, slightly more confident in myself, and parted my lips slightly wider. Waspinator stopped assaulting me with his mandibles and, for a brief second, I was afraid that I had done something wrong. He parted his jaw somewhat so I could get better access though, and I realized it was an invitation. With a brief amount of hesitation crossing my caution circuits, I trailed my lips over his mandibles and he started to move against me again. We took intakes through our olfactory sensors and tried to keep the moment dragged out as much as possible.

Waspinator broke off after sometime. I hadn't been keeping track of the time.

I kissed him _back_.

For a moment, I thought I was doing something wrong because he stopped his own movements, ceasing to assault me with his mandibles altogether. He didn't pull away however, so kept on and didn't back down in fear that everything would turn more awkward than it already was. I kissed him lightly and that was when Waspinator parted his split jaw further so that I could get better access. I hesitantly trailed my lips up and down the yellow and green plating - I wasn't really sure of what else to do, taking into consideration the mold of Waspinator's mouth - and then Waspinator's own movements resumed. We moved in sync, breathing only through our olfactory sensors and focusing on keeping up on our kiss. I felt we needed to address this… whatever it was we were doing, but I couldn't will myself away.

I really didn't want to stop - I was sure the same went on for Waspinator - but the fact remained that my partner finally pulled away.

He turned his head away and I immediately backed off, paranoid that I had done something wrong. The full scope of what we actually did - and the usual significance behind something like that - hit me full force and it took every ounce of my psyche from panicking. What had we been doing? More so, why had I _enjoyed it?_ Waspinator's kept his optics offline for a few more clicks, but I was glad he did. That way he couldn't see the paranoia an anxiety flash across my expression. Waspinator must have sensed me watching him, because he reactivated his optics and met his lake azure optics with my own bloodied ones. The sun met the horizon while we were distracted and its crimson brilliance made the sky a deep orange scarlet mixed with purple. Waspinator must have felt the same anxiety I must have, because his face was flushed very lightly in the setting sun's luminescence. The glow of the sun couldn't hide it. It was a relief to me that he looked just as embarrassed about what we did - Primus, I actually _kissed_ Waspinator - as I was. The poor guy looked like he almost couldn't find it in himself to speak. I don't think I could have even if you threatened my life. Finally, after the silence nearly consumed us, he spoke.

"Um… that wazz…" he trailed off, looking unsure as if how he wanted to finish. The confounded puzzlement in his own optics showed me that he was very unsure of himself. At least I wasn't the only one, it seemed.

I think I caught him by surprise as much as I did myself, because I suddenly found the urge to lean forward and kiss him again. It was impossible for me to tell whether or not I was imaging what was happening. I found it difficult to deceiver whether or not I was still asleep by the side of the lake and, for a moment, I was almost entirely positive I was. Almost. Feeling the heat of Waspinator's blush when I pecked him on the front of his mouth where his mandibles parted however, made my online sensors beep in the corner of my mind at what temperature his synthetic skin was at. Sensors didn't react to real time stimulus in dreams. I was very much awake, and this was all very much happening.

Waspinator didn't initially kiss back, and I immediately drew away. His optics were offline, dazed. He must have felt m gaze on him, because he onlined his optics once more and a distant look overcame his features. I was momentarily afraid that I upset him and overstepped our already overstepped boundaries, but then _he_ kissed me again. He turned his head to the side to graze his mandibles against my cheek. I couldn't suppress the urge to shudder at feeling his cool emerald plating tickle lightly against my pale features. I forced myself to remain calm and still when he reached my audio.

"…Wazzpinator thinkzz he's in love with Terror-bot," he murmured lightly. He sounded dazed. I had to wonder whether or not he thought he was dreaming, too.

My fuel pump sputtered inside my chest when he spoke.

_"…Really?"_ My voice was barely above a rasped whisper.

He felt for me, too? Just like I felt for him?

He must have felt self conscious, because he quickly continued on and was audibly trying to force his vocalizer not to stutter foolishly. His hands and wings visibly trembled when he spoke. "Wazzpinator thought about it a lot today and Wazzpinator can't get over Terror-bot. When Bird-bot hurt Terror-bot… when…" he trailed off, leaving the sentence unfinished. HE obviously didn't want to go on. Whatever did happen to me after Airrazor nearly scrapped me, it must have been bad. Either way, I was sure that it would be etched in his processors as a horrific nightmare. That was how disturbed he looked.

He backed away from my audio and I looked over towards him, looking directly into his face. It was very distinguishably twisted with worry and he unconsciously wrung his hands. To me, he looked so much younger than he actually was. The innocence and anxiety glowing within his optics were prominent, begging me for a response and at the same time dreading one. I couldn't blame him. I would have probably acted the same way had I revealed my own feelings for him first.

I smirked at him.

"…I guess the feeling's mutual," I said with as much as my usual character as I possibly could, given the circumstances. "I love you too, you dummy. Now we're even."

He perked up right away, wings going erect and eyes brightening. I had to stifle a laugh. To see him snap out of his anxious state so quickly made me momentarily muse whether or not he suffered mental whiplash from it. "Terror-bot meanzz it!" Every bit of peppiness and his usual character returned.

I smiled genuinely at him. That was something that, after I realized I did it, I wasn't even capable of. I wanted to say something back to him, but my voice caught in my throat.

His entire form was a bright emerald. As bright as an emerald angel's, maybe.

He leaned forward and kissed me lightly again with a slightly more playful vigor than before. I pulled back again and felt an abrupt mood swing after I kissed him. We locked gazes and we watched one another for sometime before he leaned forward and kissed me once more. Primus, I felt like I was walking on air every time the distance was closed between us. We ended up going back and forth that for another ten cycles.

We finally broke away after the sun completely set into the western horizon. We ended staying on the cliff edge for another megacycle or so watching the stars. I still couldn't help but notice the emerald hue of his armor even after the sun set, and when only the twin moons were left to illuminate its sheen. It was dark out when I abruptly realized we were going to be late for curfew. I mentioned it to him and Waspinator, startled, checked his own internal clock before voicing that he had come to the same conclusion as I had. We both stood to leave. I was a graceful figure compared to his clumsiness and I had to help him up Without even thinking, I reached a hand down to his much like the way I had after I retrieved him from the boulder Dinobot dropped on him. Had that really been several weeks ago? It felt like it was yesterday. However, it was when he stood that I noticed that he actually carried himself very well. I hadn't noticed that before. His back was straight and his stance solid. That was when I realized that I didn't let go of his hand even after he was back on his feet. My servo was still tightly clamped onto his. The gesture perhaps only lasted five clicks or so before I managed to pull away. I gave his fist a reassuring squeeze and he returned it. We didn't find ourselves in another kiss, although I pecked him on the side of his face just before we took off back for base.

We didn't make it back right on time. We were late by three cycles past our curfew. The both of us landed just outside the _Darkside_ and attempted to sneak in, though my inability to get away with anything combined with Waspinator's bad luck rendered the attempt impossible.

I stood close to Waspinator when we walked in, the latter probably hoping that there wouldn't be a conflict. However, with Megatron, Scorponok, and I in the same room, it's usually unavoidable and more of a question as to when the arguments break loose. I was a bit of an instigator… this time around it took less than ten clicks. I took to a hover pad to report back in and, before Scorponok could jeer at my me - I saw his face twist upward with the intention to speak - I beat him to it. Out of the corner of my vision, I could see Waspinator's exasperated expression. What? It's not _my_ fault Scorponok and Grape Face hate my circuits! Waspinator said nothing, but made up for his silence by keeping his own hover pad close to mine in case my heckle towards Megatron's second brought the tyrant's wrath on us… on _me._

I appreciated Waspinator for that. Even when we weren't aiming our weapons and dive bombing Maximals, he still had my back.

Scorponok snapped back and Megatron had quickly intervened, growling at me to keep my beak shut. I obliged, but not without a quick snort and mumbling just beneath my breath how much of a glitch fragger he was. I maneuvered my pad towards the control room exit so Waspinator and I could get to our quarters. I was expecting Megatron to comment, perhaps even lash out at me for turning my back on him leader, but he didn't. That surprised me, but I shrugged it off without much of a second thought. Waspinator followed me and was right on my heels. By the time we were out of the room walking towards our quarters, Waspinator stopped me in the middle of the hallway and scolded me for baiting Megatron the way I had. His face was twisted with minor irritation, but there was a definite and undeniable look of worry in his optics. He wasn't very good at hiding his feelings. I merely smiled, feeling the teasing grin tug at the corners of my mouth.

"Concerned?"

"Yezz," he stated flatly in a buzz. His arms were crossed and his stance firm, but I could visibly tell that he was desperately trying not to melt under my touch when I reached a hand forward to cup the right side of my face. Had he always shuddered like during the times that I touched him before our encounter at Tanna? I wasn't sure, but I had a feeling he had, and that I was only just noticing it now. I must have been stupid not to see his affections before. My free hand found one of his and he looked about ready to loose himself when my digits stroked against the green back of his palm lovingly. Waspinator leaned forward and lightly kissed me fleetingly. I smirked, tapped the side of his face with an index finger, and then I squeezed his hand again like I had back at the mountain's ledge.

"So…" I trailed off and shrugged. "Maybe we can head back to Tanna tomorrow?"

He readily agreed. I kissed him and we parted ways to our own quarters. I had an odd amount of trouble getting to sleep that night.

Several days passed and our little game kept on. We would both finish with our duties around the _Darkside _as early as we could manage - Waspinator with slightly more vigor than before I noted, though I was sure it was because he wanted to spend more time with me - and we would head off directly to Tanna-16 to watch the sunsets. There was one day when we couldn't go out however but, either way, it was another breaking point in our relationship. Though the wall that kept our once restrained feelings apart had been broken down, there were still things that continuously popped up. Physical contact between us seemed to increase gradually until the point where we couldn't have a conversation without brushing up against one another or lightly touching the other's body. Even then, the contact was also becoming more intimate. Our hands would linger on one another's form longer and would even occasionally caress if we weren't paying attention to what our hands were doing. Breaking that point was what happened when it was raining out at Tanna-16 that day. Unable to go, we opted to remain at the base. Scorponok had needed help with repairing a blown fuse box in one of the hallways and Waspinator, feeling like he owed him for helping repair me in the canyon, volunteered to help. Despite the poor weather out at the mountain, I had tagged along because I still wanted be with him.

The fuse box sparked under Waspinator's ministrations, zapping his point tipped fingers and making him flinch away. He hissed a sharp buzz and narrowed his blue optics at the fried wires. "Urgh. Wazzpinator _hates_ electrical work."

"You could've opted to not do this," I murmured. I was leaning against the wall, my arms crossed over my chest loosely, and I glanced down at him. I tapped my forearms in an unconscious looking gesture and the resonating pang reverberated off the walls. "I know you mentioned that you thought you owed Scorponok, but-"

"Nothing," the wasp razzed. "Wazzpinator probably owes Scorpion-bot more the way Wazzpinator feels about Terror-bot."

"I'm touched," I joked, but I hoped that Waspinator couldn't hear how my voice faltered indistinctly. Despite my usually overblown ego, I was still genuinely humbled that he cared about me that much.

We were silent. Though we usually weren't unspoken with one another anymore, this was a more casual quiet. Waspinator fiddled around with the wires more and he broke the silence just as casually as we had created it. "Terror-bot is afraid of heights. Why?"

_How did he find out?_

My mechanical brain tripped over itself, reeled in horror, and I snapped my head down to look at him. I felt that my mouth was agape and I wanted to say desperately that I _wasn't_ afraid of heights, but I couldn't come up with anything plausible or convincing. How did he find out? Did I make it too obvious? We locked gazes for a moment before he broke our state and uncomfortably stared at his handiwork before him. "After Bird-bot shot Terror-bot, Terror-bot kept rambling and asking that Wazzpinator not drop him. Terror-bot seemed nervous on Tanna cliff, too."

Which made sense to me, if I was as delirious as I knew I was after Airrazor's treatment. I turned away, embarrassed over the fact that my emerald partner knew my phobia. We were silent again for sometime and I wanted to desperately break it. Waspinator kept working in silent, probably in silent agreement with me. When he nearly finished with his work, I slowly knelt beside him. He snapped his neck around to regard me and we made optic contact once more. My optics glowed in the darkness of the hall - the only thing lighting the hallway was from the single fluorescent light from up another hall - and I murmured. "Do… do you think I'm a fool for being afraid of something that stupid?"

He perked up, seemingly taken aback by what I said. "No! Wazzpinator was just confused why Terror-bot be afraid of heights!"

I stared at him a moment longer and, after a few clicks, I broke the contact feeling my insides twist. I turned around and slumped back against the wall, lazily bringing my right knee up and draping my arm over it. I sighed heavily and blinked, feeling my optics dull in the low light. The memories bothered me, but I needed to say _something_. "…I just have been. I didn't do much flying as a kid on Cybertron, so I just… I was just introduced to it too late."

Introduced to it too late because my mother hated me. My father had been a Seeker and, more or less, I ended up looking just like him being a Seeker myself. She hated my father for leaving her with spark and, with that, she found it in herself to hate me too. It was for that reason that Firehawk wouldn't even so much let me stretch my wings. Infant Seekers on Cybertron - both Decepticon and Predacon - were known for being midair daredevils and we would learn to fly very early on in our lives as sparklings. Being introduced to the air so early on in our lives, ironically, the only phobia we would usually have would be the fear of enclosed spaces and being grounded. Ninety something percent of all the Seekers ever created had claustrophobia and would drive themselves mad if we were denied the freedom to fly. The fact any Seeker would have a fear of heights was an alien concept.

I spoke again, clenching and unclenching my fists at random intervals. "I can't stand enclosed spaces either, but heights were a weird hang up I've had since… I don't know. Since forever I guess. My mother wouldn't let me fly around when I was old enough to and I tried to hover down the staircase when she wasn't home. I fell and just about nearly broke my arm. I was afraid of falling ever since. I… I hope that dignifies it," I said finally. My internals inwardly shuddered from the memory of falling down the staircase and looking up to see my arm twisted at an angle that should not have been possible. The fall probably should not have smashed it up so bad but… my mother had abused the same one earlier in the week. The joints inside the casing were strained enough as it was. It made breaking it so much easier than it should have been.

I didn't think that it would be dignified at all, but Waspinator only shrugged somewhat. "It was alwayzz dignified. Wazzpinator not blame Terror-bot," he answered back in a smooth razz. He wasn't a Seeker back on Cybertron - he was a Cybertronian helicopter - but he still got antsy when he couldn't fly. Most other fliers like him weren't nearly as bad of as us Seekers were, but he was still mildly claustrophobic. To an extent, I guess he could relate. Being as delicate as he could, he finished the rewiring and closed the metallic door to the fuse box.

I turned to look at Waspinator in surprise, letting my optics lock with his. "Really?"

He nodded eagerly. "Yeah. Wazzpinator has weird hang ups too, remember?"

I _did_ remember. I felt my face turn humorously grim. "And I thought your shiny object fetish was bad. The sugarcane addiction is definitely worse."

My own reminder brought up images from events that I think we both preferred to not remember. When we had scanned our respectful beast-modes, many of us had picked up on the traits of the animals we used as our alternate forms. Whereas I had the strangest craving for sunbathing, fish, and small birds, Waspinator had beast-mode wrought addiction for sugary substances and anything that held a reflective glint. One warm day after the events that took place within Tanna-16, while Scorponok and Blackarachnia had tried to set up a jamming station just beyond our territory border with the Maximals, Waspinator and I had been standing guard to make sure the project was successful. It wasn't, unfortunately enough. Rattrap, Cheetor, Dinobot, and Tigertron had ambushed and engaged the two of us when we weren't expecting them. Outnumbered, we had no choice but to make a hasty retreat. I had given my emerald clad partner the order to do so, but then the poor idiot saw a glint of light reflect off an object Rattrap had tossed into the air… which was a grenade. Hopelessly engrossed by the sheen surface of the explosive, Waspinator had stared at it stupidly until gravity started to pull it back down. It exploded a click later. As a result, he was sent flying backwards before he crashed violently into the ground. I managed to retrieve him, though not without taking it upon myself to disclose that he had some seriously dangerous tendencies.

…_Then_ there was the sugar binge incident. All he claimed to remember was wolfing down a few pounds of sugarcane and then waking up in his room with huge hangover. I had been waiting for him to wake up while I sat on the edge of his berth. Either way, I'm glad he can't recall anything else. Waspinator returned from that patrol and nearly leveled the entire base buzzing around like a lunatic. The only casualties were the consoles and a few of the light fixtures on the ceiling - the ones Waspinator kept ramming into - but I'm sure the rampage's memory gave even _Tarantulas_ nightmares. Since then though, he had a noticeable addiction to sugar. Regardless to the fact Megatron had banned sugar from being even within a hundred meters of the _Darkside_ - his apparent sugar hyped rampage had obviously humbled the grape face enough to the point where he didn't even want it near the base - I would occasionally slip him a gram or so once or twice a week. He praised me endlessly for it.

Waspinator buzzed, his antennas and his internals humming from the thought of the contraband Megatron had prohibited. "Don't remind Wazzpinator."

I laughed a dry cackle before I leaned towards my partner and smirked at him. Our optics met and I realized my smirk wasn't a smirk at all. The term 'smirk' doesn't feel right to me anyways. I think I was smiling. "I have to run another patrol in that area tomorrow. Until I can get some for you, I won't."

Pecking me on the front of his mandibles, I kissed him lightly before I pulled away and pressed my forehead against his. I'm not usually one for being overly affectionate to anyone, but that particular movement felt right for the moment. It was just the two of us. There was no one in the hallway to see our little display - to my knowledge, there were thankfully were no security cameras either - so Waspinator seemed to find it appropriate to lean forward and catch my lips with his own mouth. I grabbed one of his shoulders and lightly pushed him back, straining to get onto my knees so that I could properly face him. Successfully managing to pull it off, I kissed him with a fever that equally matched his I wrapped my arms around his neck and, just like the barrier that kept us silent and the second one that hid our affections for one another, a third was knocked down… the barrier regarding something more than our own personal space.

The kiss suddenly deepened, slowed without warning, and I abruptly reached up to grasp the sides of Waspinator's face with my trembling hands. My insides suddenly heated and I felt a hot blush burn my face. Waspinator reached up to grasp the back of my head and he held me there.

To my silent horror, my lower regions heated and I felt lube develop in my port. And we were in a _hallway._

Waspinator was in agreement with me. He pulled away with a pan, barely finding it in his shaking voice to speak. "Not here, Terror-bot."

He was right. I mewled and pulled back. Waspinator's entire face was flushed - whether or not in embarrassment or aroused desire was beyond me - and his optics were somewhat glazed. I could imagine that my face looked very similar. I looked down at him trying to remember where we could go close by and I nodded shakily when I recalled somewhere. "Y-yeah. Follow me."

When Optimus Primal had accidentally become a berserker - courteous of another one of Scorponok's _lovely_ and now increasingly frequent screw ups - he had ambushed Waspinator in the hallway by busting through a hollow passage in the wall. The wall hadn't been patched up for the sole purpose that we didn't have the supplies needed to repair it, but it had a secure, private chamber towards the right of the gaping hole that could just barely accommodate two Transformers. The entrance to the passage was conveniently no more than ten paces from where we were working and we quickly slipped in without being noticed.

It was the first time we had sex.

As soon as Waspinator walked ahead into the closed off section that would hopefully be out of sight of anyone if they walked past the hole in the wall, I was all over him. Before he could turn to face me, I launched himself for him and kissed desperately up his jaw and mandibles. My insides were up in flames and my spark burned. I raked my teeth down his throat - at the same time, Waspinator hastily reached down to try to get his port to click open - but he was moving too slowly. Not fast enough. The burning was too great for my lapsing mind to deal with and I turned Waspinator around roughly. He went down on all fours and managed to bump his head against the wall in the process. He razzed in pain while I tried to push past his beast-mode's thorax appendage. The damn thing was so difficult to work myself around that I couldn't help the curse that escaped me. It was soft, but pitched both from arousal and frustration. I managed to open his aft port with one hand while I worked my frontal dock open with the other. In an instant, our bodied were married together and a new burning surged up through my body.

I heard Waspinator grunt from the pain and I saw out of the corner of my blurred vision and he balled his fists. Embarrassment made my face burn hot and pain made my body ache. For our first time - admittedly - it wasn't all that pleasurable. Things were far too rushed and awkward for me to be any bit enjoyable and, the way my partner had grunted earlier, Waspinator seemed to be in a silent agreement. Our bodies moved in sync, back and forth, but our sparks didn't. After sometime, I bent over slightly to rest my upper torso on Waspinator's back while we moved.

Waspinator reached his hand behind himself and he grabbed my fist. My fingers almost immediately interlocked with his and, honestly, it was probably the only thing that felt right about what we were doing. He slammed his other fist onto the floor and ducked his head down to rest his forehead on the ground. I could tell he was in pain, but the thought was lost when the electrical current pulsing in my port started to loop up into the rest of my body. I groaned and my port surged with an overload. Waspinator moaned too, arching his back and buzzing, but I wasn't stupid enough to see that he never actually came. I had to commend him for faking it decently enough, though.

My overload dwindled after a moment and we were still. I slowly pulled away from him and I closed off his aft port with as gently as I could. I knew he was going to be sore, and I was already embarrassed enough as it was. Waspinator turned to look at me, sitting with his back against the side wall and drawing his knees up to his chest. His face wasn't flushed with embarrassment, but I knew damn well that mine was. I avoided his gaze and pretended to be interested in the scuffed, black floor underneath us. We were both silent for sometime before Waspinator finally decided to break it again. He razzed, voice quiet. "Terror-bot okay?"

I nodded absently. In truth, I wasn't. The whole experience was just _weird_, and I knew that I was definitely in for an awkward time trying to get recharge that night. "Yeah… You?"

He nodded, but averted his own gaze from trying to find mine. As I had pretended to be interested in the otherwise unentertaining splendor of the metallic floor, he pretended to take interest in the wall next to his head. His optics were acute, studying the dull black shadows his body cast. Discomfiture was making my spark pulse laps in its casing and that was when I decided to stand and leave. I got out of the small compartment as quickly as I could without making my movements seemed rushed. I couldn't believe that I allowed myself to drop that _low_. There wasn't anything even remotely dignifying about the situation I dragged him into - and I blamed myself for this mostly because _I _had been the one dominant - and I knew that I couldn't grace him with my presence without degrading him even further. I went straight to my room after ensuring that I was off duty and I threw myself into my berth, turning out all the lights and trying to force myself into recharge. Granted, it was far easier said than done, although I eventually drifted off into a light recharge.

Then someone was knocking at my door not ten cycles later.

Thankful for the interruption to my embraced thoughts, I was momentarily hoping that it was Scorponok. That way I could argue with him and further distract myself from thinking about Waspinator. I sat up slowly, taking my time, before getting up and walking across the room. Feeling my optics wanting to offline so I could further recharge, I rubbed at my face and leaned against the doorframe, unseeing who was in front of me. "What?"

There was no answer.

I ran my hand down my face and it was then that my optics were unhindered from seeing that it was Waspinator. I mentally reeled and froze, feeling my optics brighten upon realizing it was him. I dropped my hand away from my face and I immediately straightened out. Instead of the usually bright and cheerful mecha I had become accustomed to dealing with, I was met with a far more dejected looking one. His optics were slightly darker than usual and his shoulders, instead of being squared, were dropped with his wings falling in place concealed behind them instead of standing erect. The air that was looming over him worried me, and I reached out toward him with concern. "Waspinator? Slag, what-?"

He buzzed dejectedly. His shoulders shook, his wings went slightly rigid, and he razzed miserably. I could see moisture had built up in his optics. "Wazzpinator… _sorry?_"

He suddenly dropped my head so he was looking down at the floor. Whether or not it was because he was ashamed of looking at me was beyond my questioning. He started bawling before I could ask. It was the first time I had ever seen him break down since the start of the Beast Wars, and it was an unnerving sight to take hold of. To me, Waspinator always came across as being mentally stronger than I could have given him credit for. He was young, but he seemed to have a very good endurance in mentality when it came to stress. Not like me. I couldn't hope to deal with stress as well as he did. Seeing him turn his head down and cry for the first time since I met him was bothersome and somewhat disturbing. He buzzed dismally and balled his hands turned to fists in a vain, last ditch effort to maintain himself. I knew he was embarrassed to go and look _weak_ in front of me, but I didn't care for that.

I took a step forward and, before I could actually assess what I was doing, I wrapped my arms around his narrow shoulders and pulled him tightly against him. With his view of the floor now obscured by the top of my chest when I brought our bodied together, he pressed my head against my shoulder to compensate. My grip was firm and I felt oddly at ease with having Waspinator in it. I kept shushing and pressing his body to my own, willing whatever it was that was ailing him to stop. I rocked with him on my heels and rubbed the back of his tense neck with the base of my right thumb. "Waspinator, _what_-?"

He sniveled and made a choking sound in the far back of his throat. I didn't think he originally had the capacity to respond with actual words - he seemed too choked up for that much, at least - but then his voice rose up. "Terror-bot left and Wazzpinator alone. Doezz Terror-bot not _want_ Wazzpinator anymore?"

…_Oh._

Immediately, I felt stupid and guilty all at once. Needless to say that _"stupid"_ and _"guilty"_ are not words that my over inflated sense of pride would usually allow myself to admit feeling, but I couldn't help it. How could I have not realized that Waspinator would get upset if I just upped and left without saying anything? The damn Pred was still practically a _kid_. How could he have understood that I only left because I didn't want to embarrass him more than I already had? I hugged him tighter. I was momentarily worried that I was actually holding him too tight, but Waspinator was voicing no complaint. For a split second, it occurred to me that there wasn't a single force in the universe who could have torn him out of my grip in that instant. It was a curious thought, though I didn't have the time to mull over it for any longer than I already had. I turned my head and pressed my crested forehead against his temple. The movement was moderately uncomfortable for my neck - the gears even creaked a little - but it wasn't unbearable. For Waspinator's sake, I would manage. "Geez, Waspinator I'm sorry. I didn't mean for you to get this upset."

He hiccupped and managed to take a shuddering breath. "Terror-bot still want Wazzpinator?"

"Waspinator, _yes,"_ I replied, my tone exasperated. I kissed the side of his head lightly, letting my lips ghost over the armor there. "The reason I left has nothing to do with you. I just… I felt like I total fragger afterwards. Of all the places we _had_ to do it, we had to interface inside the _wall_. You deserve better."

The words that came out of my own mouth caught me off guard, and I felt myself stop stroking the nape of my partner's neck. Waspinator must have been afraid that I was going to back away from him, because he reached up and gripped either side of my arms to keep our forms against one another. His voice was a questioning buzz of uncertainty. "Terror-bot means that?"

I nodded against him. "…C'mon. You wanna spend the night with me?"

I knew Waspinator wanted to say yes, but the poor mech's vocalizer still made him keep up with his sniveling. Regardless though, I lead him into my darkened quarters, only pulling away from him in order to close the door. I could hear the light clatter of his plating as he shuddered, undoubtedly still wishing to be put back into my embrace. Moonlight shone through the stretch of window that dominated the far back wall, illuminating the keypad in a pallid glow as I entered the code to close the door. It hissed shut and I turned to look at Waspinator. He had his back to me and was looking at the far back window. He looked like a statue and, momentarily, I was reminded about a painting that I had done in my past lifetime on Cybertron.

I forced that memory out of my mind. It was too painful to reminisce about.

I approached Waspinator and wrapped my arms around him, tenderly kissing the up side of his neck. Without a word, I silently pushed him along towards the berth and helped him get in. Though it was somewhat larger than the standard size recharge ports, the bed was still too small for two mechs to share it sprawled out. Waspinator had to lie on it facing the furthest from the wall so I would still have room. If he didn't lie on his side with his back facing the very edge, the wasp's wings and ungodly huge wasp abdomen would keep me from getting on the recharge plate at all.

I clambered on from the foot of the bed and sat up against the wall when I reached the headrest of the berth. I thrummed my fingers against my thighs and Waspinator silently sat up with me. We both stayed like that, side by side against the black metal, but then he made the motion to rest his head against my shoulder. I wrapped my left arm around his waist and kept him as close as possible. We stayed like that for a long time before I moved my right hand towards his own sitting tiredly against my upper leg.

I grasped it and, without hesitation, he held his back. He stroked the backside of my scarlet hand with his black colored thumb. We stayed like that for even longer.

Though the sky had been clear - the moonlight pouring in through the windows was an indication of this most definitely - I heard the too tall pitter patter of rain starting to fall against the _Darkside_. The rainstorm that had been at Tanna and the other northernmost Predacon sectors had finally moved south towards our base. I imagined what Tanna had to look underneath the shimmering moonlight and I was tempted to ask Waspinator that once the rain stopped if he wanted to go with me out there sometime at night. The idea would obviously never run by Grape Face but I was sure we could find a way to sneak out. Before I could break our silence though, the light from the window was slightly blotted out. Clouds had passed over it and, moments later, the heavy pounding of rain against the _Darkside_'s deformed hull resonated. It was an oddly relaxing sound that made me silence my question and listen. Thunder rumbled in a non-menacing, faraway manner outside.

Something about the room changed. Namely Waspinator.

He razzed, his arousal coiling to a spring. I hadn't noticed his condition at all at first but, after a few cycles, I somehow managed to lance at him and see the discomfort on his face. Curious, I angled my head so he could allow myself to look down at him and the dulled shadows that caught on his features made him look far older than he really was. His optics were a dark royal blue in the dark, but his armor was still that ever shade of persistent emerald. I found it strange that I noticed the color before I realized what was happening to him. My scanners indicated that his body temperature had risen considerably and that his wings were twitching very slightly from discomfort.

He must have felt my gaze on him, because he glanced up towards me completely and our optics met. His ocean hued ones clashed with my red set and I knew instantly what it was his body was craving. Very carefully, I moved my hand away from his and ran it cautiously up the length of his thigh. He stifled a low groan but, nevertheless, I brought it up to his inner thigh and caressed the spot very hesitantly. Slowly, cautiously, my partner spread his legs slightly to allow me the room to do this. My confidence wavered. I knew what came next, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Not without his complete permission. Sometimes what the body wanted was never necessarily what the mind did. Waspinator voiced no complaint, so I pushed my luck not hearing an objection and I let my fingers trail over his codpiece. I had to sit up slightly so I could accomplish this and Waspinator moaned very lightly. His head lolled back so it bumped against the back wall. _"Terror-bot…"_

Reading hid body language as a sign for me to continue, I gently rubbed his crotch with my whole hand. My spark thrummed nervously, unsure whether or not I was doing all right, but Waspinator's reaction was an indication that he greatly liked it. His internal body temperature spiked and he angled his neck so he could meet my optics again with a hazy, pleasured look. I gently pushed down on his port cover and the retractable emerald seal hissed open. Heat radiated from between his legs and I could smell the unmistakable scent of hot copper that indicated his arousal. Though not completely at his most venerable - he would have had to expose his spark to be at that stage, and the thought made me reel apprehensively - his face flushed and he broke our optic contact. I buried his face in my shoulder with a buzzing whimper, nuzzling my neck as best he could.

I hesitated again. He mewled pathetically and, finding myself with nowhere else to go, I pressed myself onward. I dipped my trigger and middle digit into his port.

Waspinator's reaction was immediate. He resisted the urge to buck if the way his back groaned was any indication, but even he couldn't stop the initial jolt that made him jerk in place. Forcing himself not to arch into the touch, he gasped and groaned like he was dying as he buzzed wings when I wormed my fingers down against his super sensitive circuitry. Biting back a loud moan, he balled his hands into fists and pressed them against his thighs. Without much aim as to what I could do with him, I settled for thrusting in an out of Waspinator's body gently. Every now and again, I could try going in at a new angle and he squeaked in bliss whenever I did. The room was eerily silent despite his harshening air intakes and, briefly, it reminded me about the silence we had at the beginning of our partnership.

Then I stopped thrusting and I began stroking. Judging by Waspinator's reaction, his spark must have been doing flips in its casing.

I stopped my method and nearly pulled out when I used my thumb to trace around the outside of his interface dock. He gasped my nickname and groaned. I pushed my fingers back down inside him, but this time I experimented with stroking the cables rather than brushing up against them. It must have been a while new sensation, because his already quickly beating fuel pump audibly sputtered inside his chest. He buried his face in my neck further and moaned, continuing to resist arching his straining hips my hips into my hand. I kept my gaze on him, watching for any signs of discomfort. I was ready to completely pull the plug on the session if it looked like I was hurting him.

I continued to stroke the wiring before I let my thumb and two digits dip further down. They brushed up a cable thick enough for me to wrap all my fingers around it. He moaned brightly when I brushed up against it, spreading his legs further apart when I let my touch linger. Hook, line, and sinker. Sweet spot. His moan was suddenly lost when I started to pump the cable with my two fingers. I moved up and down against it, shifting my entire hand with the motion, and the friction was too much for him to handle. I could feel the electricity dancing in his port buildup with an oncoming overload.

For the first time under my ministrations, Waspinator overloaded. Oh _gods… _Waspinatorwas never considered the prettiest Predacon to grace our lovely mismatched crew on the Darkside, but his _face…_

He gasped meekly, letting his mandibles fall open and a hot blush clouded the coolant just beneath his synthetic flesh. Sparks zapped from between his legs and there was nothing he could do but moan and ride through it. Waspinator gave in finally, arched weakly, and I merely kept pleasing him off through all of it.

When his overload finally began to dwindle, I removed my fingers and rubbed his port to ease the seal back closed. Waspinator panted lightly, keeping his face buried in my throat and trying to regain what little composure he had left. I watched him for a moment before extending my hand - the one I used to please him - so it came up underneath his chin. Gently, I pulled away to get a look at him. He tried to keep his face downcast but I tilted his chin up so he was forced to look up at me. I needed to make sure he was all right. His optics onlined and he forced his lax mandibles closed. His expression was unreadable and his blue optics were hazy with exhaustion. I could imagine that my own were bright with concern. Very quietly, he mewled.

My voice was soft compared to the rain pounding outside. "Are you all right?"

He probably would have responded if he had the energy, but he did not. Just by taking a quick scan of his body, I could plainly see that he had barely enough energy reserves to nod, let alone voice a response. I bent my head forward slightly, hesitated for only the briefest of clicks, and then I closed the space between us to kiss him tenderly. The fingers on the hand that kept his head from falling forward from Waspinator's lack of strength stroked the underneath of his chin plating while my other arm, still wrapped around him, squeezed gently on his lower shoulder. He shivered as his post-bliss began to dwindle into exhaustion and recharge began to sweep him away into nothingness. Before he finally gave in and fell offline, I pulled away after and kissed the top of his forehead gently.

I don't remember falling offline, but I eventually fell asleep. There were still the chains that I had remembered previously, but this time they were considerably lighter and I was able to stand… at least, stand with a slight hunch. I dreamt that I saw two sparks floating together in the dark - one a gorgeous green, the other a raggedy red - before they fused together and turned a brilliant gold. The dream itself disturbed me greatly for several reasons. The most blunt of these reasons was that sparks fused together when Transformers bonded. Not that the thought of ever bonding with Terrorsaur scared me, absolutely not, but the rate at which our relationship was going _did._

We had once been nothing more than partners in Megatron's scheme who were silent to one another with no sense of friendship between them. In a fluke, we became friends and, in another, we turned into something more than that. Remembering my dream made me wonder and fear what was next.

…Could he be a mate?

It was a strange, discerning thought that made me doubt my own sensibility. If it wasn't unnerving for me to even consider the thought, it was downright frightening. We hadn't even been properly dating - at least I didn't think so. Neither of us had referred to our relationship in that sense - and the thought of tying the knot with him frightened me. Unless it was meant to happen of course but, honestly, thought frightened me more. If there really _was_ a higher power like Primus out there, did that mean that maybe the rate we were molding ourselves into one another's life was planned? I was deathly afraid to find out. I didn't like not being in control of my own fate.

The golden, pulsating sphere in front of me did not answer. It continued to glow and I was consumed by its light.

It was around that time when I woke up. The darkness lifted and my optics flickered online. The sound of the heavy rain outside the ship's exterior had faded into the soft thudding of a soft drizzle. It was still dark out but a quick time check on my behalf indicated that it was five or so hours before sunrise. I stirred, feeling the corner of my mouth with my returning awareness, and I brightened my visual sensors. My neck was sore after having my chin resting on my chest while I recharged, but my attention was drawn away from my own moderate discomfort to the mech beside me. I could already tell by Waspinator's light breathing that he was awake, and probably had been for a long time. I inclined my head to look at him and we stared at one another for a very long time. Another one of our unannounced staring contests. My eyes locked with his sky blue ones and I would have broken contact if Waspinator hadn't first. The emerald mech looked down, staring at the wall past my face, and I unconsciously reached a hand up to stroke his abs. I could tell something was bothering him. I hoped he couldn't tell something was bothering _me_ as well. "You okay?"

"Wazzpinator just tired," he replied. He nuzzled the side of his emerald helm against my head and his left wing twitched unconsciously. We were quiet for a minute or two while we listened to the nearly undetectable rain before my partner spoke up once more. A deep, stirring conflict was dulling his usually vibrant blue hued optics. "Wazzpinator just has a lot to think about."

I couldn't find the words to adequately respond, but I kept my gaze on him for a long time. I didn't have to look into a mirror at my own optics to know that the doubt in my face was showing too.

It had been another week or so later - with no more attempts at proper sex or any alternatives due to our embarrassment on the subject - and we got even closer. We went out to Tanna nearly every day when we had the immediate chance and then we started to share quarters often, though we were in my more than his. In all seriousness, my quarters were far cleaner than his. In the few months that we were stranded on the alien planet, his room's floor had managed to accumulate a decent amount of random scrap that Waspinator incessantly collected. After we habitually returned from curfew, we would typically retire to my room. My berth couldn't accommodate two mechs unless they were on their sides - front to back - and unusually close. It honestly didn't matter to us. For the most part, I usually held him from behind when we slept… although, on rare occasions, he did the same to me.

My pterodactyl beast-mode's head was a hassle to get around, but Waspinator still managed to deal with it when he was the one who held me. I was taller than he was by a few inches, but my tendency to curls up into a ball made the literal size difference irrelevant. Then there were the much more frequent times where _I_ would hold him. My arms would snake around his torso lovingly and I'd rest my head in the crook of his shoulder. My breath would condensate on the back of my neck in hot spurts that would slow as I gradually got closer to recharge. I could imagine that Waspinator would listen to me for a good portion of the night before he would finally fall offline himself. He would occasionally fall asleep before me during rare instances though, and it would leave me to think about what was happening to us while I was temporarily alone in the dark. I had to wonder whether or not he did the same for when I fell offline first. I didn't doubt it.

Unfortunately for the both of us, we never had had enough time to come up with an answer as to what we were going to do. One day, we were both nearly killed. It changed out lives forever.

Waspinator and I had been sent out on a recon mission to the north where the physical aspect of our pairing first began to come into play. The both of us didn't have very much to do other than freeze our tails off but finding Tigertron at least gave us something to do. The white tiger mech was at a radio tower he had set up to keep communications with the Maximals while so far away from the _Axalon_. For my partner and I, it felt only appropriate that we take him out. Waspinator and I swooped in for a kill and dodged the shots the older of the Maxi cats shot our way. Waspinator at least wasn't hit though, which seemed to put the poor bastard on edge. Usually when he wasn't shot down right off - from my observations as well as his own, from what it seemed - it usually meant the universe had something else _far_ bigger in store. Regardless, my wingmate and I managed to knock the communications tower right on Tigertron's hide. The machine was destroyed, though Tigertron lived.

I dive bombed him, letting one of my shoulder cannons reveal themselves from my shoulders. I mentally sniggered in poorly restrained glee at the warhead that revealed itself painted like a sort of shark with hotrod flames, its angry printed eyes glared out at its intended Maximal target. If there was one thing that I prided in other than my own appearance, it was digital designing. Not to brag, but I think myself to be very good at it. I think Waspinator thought so too, judging by how he treated it when he first saw it. I was working on the printed warhead during one of the nights we had extra duties and weren't able to go out to Tanna. Waspinator had entered the code to my quarters - after I so gave it to the gracious wasp several nights prior - and he had seen me rewiring a missile to be a custom fit for my cannons.

I shrugged - trying not laugh - when he asked me if it was something that was going to explode in his face. "I don't even think it's going to work," I started nonchalantly. "I just wanted an excuse to design something."

"Digital art?" He razzed and sat down on the berth to watch me work. I sat hunched over my workbench while I wired the projectile in the light of my desk lamp. "Wazzpinator didn't know Terror-bot did that."

I shrugged again. "I went to school be a graphics designer back on Cybertron," I muttered. Memories - painful, none of them benevolent - tried to surface and I shoved them back down into the recesses of my processor. I finished up with the missile's essential parts and got to work with sealing on the already printed design. I had been working on the silly thing as a side project of mine when I wasn't with Waspinator or on duty, which I eventually printed out using the industrial synthetic composers in the tech room. It was completely unnecessary when it came to getting the weapon to work, but it was nice to have anyways. He spoke up again after sometime. If I was going to spend all the rest of my time making a custom warhead for my shoulder cannons, I was at least going to make it look aesthetical. "I couldn't come up with the money to support my education in college though, so I had to drop out. Piloting was my only choice for a career since most of the others had Predacon bans. I didn't need much training either, so it worked out okay."

"But Terror-bot wasn't happy with it," he mused. He crossed his legs and his transparent blue wings twitched out of reflex behind him.

I shrugged. "Dinobot found me through my flying career. He was the one that hired me to be part of Megatron's crew. I wouldn't have met you if I didn't take the job. You?"

"Hrm?"

"What about you? Did you have any plans before you got dragged into stealing the _Darkside_ with me?"

Waspinator paused thoughtfully for a moment. At first I thought he wasn't going to answer, but then he responded. "Wazzpinator thought about being astronomer."

That alone was enough to make my mind reel. _"Waspinator"_ and the name of any scientific study were words that I didn't think could be used in the same sentence before just then. I stopped in my work and looked over at him. I had already started to apply the print to the missile's sheen surface before I turned away. To Waspinator, I could imagine that my face was dark in front of the lamp I was using on my desk, and that my features were silhouetted in the artificial light. My voice, I could blatantly hear, was just as surprised as it was curious. "Astronomy? Really? How many stars are in the Quinesson cluster?"

He told me. For the record, it was a _very_ big number.

I whistled, slapped a hand against my thigh, and flashed a wide grin in his direction. "Wow. You didn't even _hesitate."_

He shrugged, apathetic with himself. He was incredibly modest of his obvious talent. "Wazzpinator had that memorized since he was sparkling."

I shrugged back. "It's still impressive. What about on this planet? Do you recognize any constellations?"

He shook his head no.

"Aw well. It doesn't matter I guess," I said. I turned away to go back to work before I stopped myself. I inclined my head back towards him slightly, and I could imagine that my face was still blotted out from the light behind my head. "What stopped you from being an-"

I razzed and cut him off. "Same situation Terrorsaur got into."

This, of course, was seemingly the end of it. I had gone back to pasting the print on my rocket for awhile before I stopped to look over my work. I mentally saved an image of my creation to memory and, while I did this, Waspinator stood and strode up to me on an impulse that I was sure even he couldn't figure out. I looked up at him when I the gleam of his emerald hide shimmer in the bright light, contemplating his face, before he gingerly bent down and kissed me. Before I could figure out what we were doing, he was kissing down my chest and positioning himself over my codpiece. I dug my heels into the ground to keep my roller chair from moving when I bucked and my grip on the desk with my right hand was strong enough to cause mild indentations. My left hand switched back and forth from my armrest to the back of his head and my spark burned like a twirling newborn star.

Back at present though, the missile I had worked hard to make was fired and shot past my shoulder with increasing speed. I star pulled away at the last click, pivoting upwards and nearly shooting straight into my emerald angel when he passed to circle around the Maximal below us. Tigertron had to leap out of the way to avoid getting hit by the midair torpedo. The missile collided with the snow covered ground, but I was thoroughly looked disappointed when the warhead only sputtered meekly instead of exploding. I was a far better artist than an engineer apparently. That claim was even more evident when one fin on the missile's aft fell off the flank of the weapon.

Tigerton lifted his head and Waspinator suddenly put his stinger blaster on automatic, probably without even thinking.

He obviously aimed for Tigertron at first, seeing a chance to get him in his distraction, but then he must have seen the missile embedded in the snow and he aimed for that instead. One of his stingers collided with the rocket and it went off with a massive shuddering bang, exploding and sending Tigertron flying towards the edge of a cliff face. The ground suddenly started to fissure and fracture with loud groans and resonating cracks. I wasn't all too sure whether or not it was from the explosion or the earthquakes that frequently rocked the area, but Tigertron barely had enough time to get off the splintering face before it broke away. He got to his feet and staggered for the side of the cliff that was still stable and, as the piece that broke away fell, he leapt and grabbed the side of the cliff to keep from falling to his death. The attempt at self-preservation went in vain however. Tigertron lost his grip and fell straight through a dark cloud passing underneath the mountainside.

Waspinator had already flown around to get to my side - I flashed him a grin, congratulating him for his last cycle save - and the wasp whopped happily when Tigertron vanished from sight. The tiger's scream faded and he was gone. _"Success!_ Maximal _destroyed!"_

I had suggested we retrieve his parts to prove to Megatron that we managed to kill Tigertron. Waspinator whopped again merrily in response, claiming he got dibs on his head. High off our victory, he buzzed past him and I called back to him. _"Hey!_ It's _mine_, bug face!"

He razzed over his shoulder at me and transformed to his beast-mode. Diving after him, I followed suit by switching to my own beast-mode and we scanned the ground for the tiger. As fate had it, he was nowhere in sight. Aggravated, Waspinator irritatingly asked where the tiger's parts could have possibly been. He fell right in this area - I saw him fall myself - but none of his parts littered the ground. There wasn't even an indication that he had crashed.

Beside him, I looked upwards towards the dark cloud looming overhead. The mass itself was oddly suspicious with how the floating puff of moist, freezing air was far too low in altitude to be considered normal. It had a far lower altitude than the other clouds in the region I realized, and I quietly mused to myself out loud. "We saw him fall into that cloud…" I narrowed my optics and watched the deep gray mass a click longer before I flapped my wings hard and regained altitude, flying up towards the mass. Waspinator told me to wait up and he flew after me.

There was an ominous air around it. I didn't like it in the slightest, and neither did Waspinator. He voiced his opinions when we entered the dark form. The icy bitterness of frozen condensation that stung his wings made his voice tremble slightly. "Wazzpinator does not like this. Something wrong."

I said nothing. I felt the same way as Waspinator did, but couldn't respond to agree with him because there was a sudden brightness.

The misty fog parted and there was a massive floating island. Trees swayed in some sort of imaginary wind and a large tower sat in the dead center of the isle. A pristine lake that reminded me greatly of Tanna's sat in the vast island by the tall obelisk that rested within the center. Waspinator flew out ahead while I slowed behind him in awe. The last time we had ever had an encounter with the aliens involved the standing stones, but _this_ was something new altogether. I had to presume this was the aliens' work anyways. An entire island ecosystem, hidden from outsiders' views, sitting within a massive dark cloud had to be the work of an outside force. There was no way in the _Pitt_ the isle could have formed naturally.

I gasped. "Waspinator…"

He couldn't come up with anything to say in return. He flew upwards and ahead, cautious and awed at the same time by the stunning view, but then that view was compromised when a pulse blast suddenly shot out at him. It hit the giant wasp square in the shoulder and sent him flying backwards with a razzing screech. Regardless, I knew who it fired the shot before I could ever move into position to cover my partner. Waspinator shook the blow off and transformed, swooping in to attack Tigertron. With all due respect to Waspinator's retaliation, the striped cat ran and dove behind the nearest rock he could find. He had positioned himself at the furthermost edge of the floating isle closest to us and, despite the fact he had cover, he was still outnumbered two to one. My training kicked in and I swooped down, transforming into robot-mode, behind Waspinator. I fired his shoulder cannons, Tigertron fired, and Waspinator countered the cat to back me up. We went back and forth like this for no more then ten clicks before it all went to the Pitt.

Behind me, Waspinator abruptly stopped firing his gun. "Uh, Terror-bot?"

I stopped shooting as well and I inclined my head to look towards him. My wingmate was looking off in the distance, away from where our query was hiding away. Tigertron had stopped shooting from behind his cover two or so clicks earlier, leading me to believe his weapon was suffering through a quasar jam. Seeing Waspinator's lack of action and the time ticking away in our opportunity to finish him off, I was incredibly impatient. "We can't stop now! If we do, he might get another change to fight back!"

"_Look!"_ Waspinator's voice was panicked, insisting shout. I did, and this time I could see what he was pointing at. There was a bright, orange gold glow emitting from the top of obelisk at the center of the island. I gasped lightly in surprise - if it was another alien artifact, it surely couldn't have been good news - and it shot out at us no more than a split click later.

A massive gold beam from the obelisk's pyramid top exploded outward straight toward us. It made a wailing, alien sound as it whooshed through the air straight at my partner and I. Off guard and taken aback by the beam zooming towards us, neither Waspinator nor I could bring ourselves to react in time to avoid it. The screaming of the beam spiked as it got closer and, nearly a whole click after it shot at us, I could see it was plainly headed for me. Fear lanced throughout my systems and adrenaline surged through all my limbs. My onboard self-preservation systems shrieked for me to move, but it was far too late to react.

The blast hit me square in the chest. Oh the _agony_.

My radio blew a fuse, my balance center was severely damaged, and the blast itself _burned._ All of my systems, aside from the ones that kept me alive, failed…_ Including_, to my horror, my antigravity gear.I was knocked back, having completely lost my equilibrium from the force of the acidic blow, and I lost sight of Waspinator when I fell through the clouds. Horror erupted through my systems at the realization that I was freefalling. _Falling_. I desperately scrambled to try activating my antigravs and regain my balance, but the stubborn gravity thrusters were stalling from the shock of the beam. Icy fear, colder than any winter weather, gripped my internals in a terrible vice hold.

Over the roar of the freezing wind whipping past my audios, there was a loud hiss. It was from the weapon again, this time firing for Waspinator. Out of the corner of my vision as I fell, I saw a flash of gold through the clouds and heard another shriek. My emerald angel's scream was laced with pain when he was struck, unable to dodge the beam.

Primus _fraggit._

His antigravs were weaker than mine. If anything, he used his wings for primary flight and his antigravs to merely stabilize. It worked the same way when he was a helicopter. He would use his rotors to fly less than his antigravs, in comparison to a seeker like myself who used antigravs as a primary and thrusters for secondary. The wings for my beast-mode felt like they were on fire from the blast - just as well, my antigravs _still_ weren't working - so I knew damn well that there was no way that he would be able to fly. From the height we were falling, none of us would survive the crash. Not unless someone acted.

Out of the corner of my vision, against the dark sky, I saw a flash of green.

Artificial adrenaline surged through my body, making me desperately claw at my mental system commands to reboot my antigravity boosters. I was met with countless error reports, saying that I needed to reboot entirely in order to restart the primary master control. It was incredibly risky to do so. Sometimes, if one waits long enough, antigravs can sometimes restart on their own. If one were to reboot the system before that recovery status however, they might not reactivate at all. I had heard plenty of horror stories on what happened to several unfortunate Decepticon Seekers in the great war who found themselves caught in an unstoppable freefall to their deaths when they rebooted their antigravs and found that they suddenly wouldn't reactivate. Aside from dogfights, paranoia induced insanity from being grounded for too long, and suicides, it was the highest cause of death in fliers during the Decepticon rein.

Except I had no choice. Waspinator was counting on me, and I was _not_ going to let him die. I rebooted the system.

At first, nothing happened. My sensors went dark and they did not reactivate. Before I could accept my fate, they suddenly flared to life… at least, they both did before shorting out again. The system hiccupped and then fully reinitialized itself, but this time only my right one activated. Despite being severally unbalanced and major handicapped, I swooped downward toward where I could see Waspinator falling.

Artificial adrenaline pulsed through my systems. My spark lightly flared inside my chest, and without thinking, I turned screamed out for him. "WASPINATOR!"

"_TERRORSAUR!"_ The poor bastard obviously couldn't hope to tell up from down or left from right, but at least I was able to get ahead of him. I was faster at flying than he was at falling, and I caught up to him quickly while continuing to fly past him. I had to stop his fall and cushion it before the ground could. I swooped underneath him and extended my arms to catch him, but he was falling with such force that it was useless. Instead of me stopping his fall, he kept going down while also dragging me with him. Desperately scrambling to slow ourselves down, I strained my internal antigravity gear to their highest critical level. A warning popped up in the corner of my vision saying that I had strained it to a critical level - and that, consequently, it was going to short out again if I did not stop excreting pressure immediately - and I squawked in frustration.

Then I realized, for the first time since I had known him, he had called me by my actual name.

The ground zoomed closer and the both of us were helpless to avoid the crash that followed. The last thing I saw the snow before I blacked out. The darkness lingered only briefly thankfully.

I was shaken out of unconsciousness by a firm shove against my shoulder. "T-Terror-bot, please wake up…" My shoulder was briefly squeezed, but I was too out of my own loop to properly react. I wanted to sit up and respond to the muffled, faraway address, but I found it very difficult to move. It was still dark, but I could also see some muted light in my peripheral vision… that was when I realized I was face first in the snow. Cold wind was nipping at my back's exposed hide, but the heat from Waspinator was prominently beside me. Suddenly, before I could contemplate further, I was roughly shaken. _"Terrorsaur!"_

And there he had gone saying my full name again. I wouldn't have realized he had called me by his real name if his voice hadn't sounded so terrified, though.

I twitched, and I could feel Waspinator's hand resting on my back. Slowly, I tried to sit up. Pain, hot and pulsating, was driving itself into my body and making my pain management systems fritz from the strain. Quickly, Waspinator turned me over onto my side and I rolled the rest of the way onto my back. At first all I saw was white and I was worried that I had shattered my optical glass in the fall, but then I realized that I was just seeing the snow falling. I could feel the hot, merciless burns on my face and my stomach was so knotted that I wanted to puke. I coughed and sputtered, taking in a wheezed breath, and I broke off into a loud hacking fit. My chest rose and fell drastically from the effort and I suddenly realized that I was having an immense difficulty breathing. Waspinator took notice, because he moved forward and repositioned himself so he was on his knees before reaching underneath my back with one of his arms. With the rest of his strength, he sat me up and held me there so I could regulate my own intakes. He took his other arm and wrapped it around my shoulders, hugging me loosely to his own battered body. My breathing had gotten better a few cycles later, but the fact still remained that I felt horribly sick. I was shaky all over, almost like I was about to have a seizure, and I couldn't figure out why.

Then it finally dawned on me. We had been in the air before we… _I…_

I coughed and my voice trembled violently when I finally had enough breath to speak. "I _fell…" _

Waspinator either thought my shaking was from the cold or actually realized it was from terror, because he hugged me closer. His hold was gentle enough to show that he was trying not to put any more stress on my superstructure then there already. I was too shaken to care. He buzzed comfortingly to him. "Terror-bot is okay. Terror-bot is fine…" he said things like that to him for about half a cycle before I finally felt my nerves calm down. My breath still came out in wheezes and it would occasionally turn into a gasp - the inside of my chest felt heavy, which was enough of an indication to me that I had probably hurt my oxygen intake valves either when I was shot or when we crashed into the snow - but I did feel better… or at least as better as I could with my injuries. And the fact that I _fell. _

Then, at the same time while falling and living one of my worst nightmares, I had saved Waspinator. That took courage in itself I thought and, whilst I had owed him my life from the incident involving Airrazor, I had paid back my debt.

I strained to look at him, my voice still slightly shaken. "Are you okay?"

He nodded, shuddering a cold wind brushed over my his damaged chassis. Although he said he indicated he was all right, I didn't believe him. There was a burn across his chest that looked particularly painful - I could see several brightly colored wires sparking just beneath the surface of his synthetic flesh - and there were holes in his wings that had to have been agony in their own right. "Wazzpinator not be if Terrorsaur hadn't saved him."

For the third time, again, he had called me by his full name. I wasn't sure if he had noticed the occurrences before, but I felt the need to acknowledge it. I looked to him and blinked. That was when I noticed that his optics were cracked. Still, regardless, I could still make out the emerald in his burned hide. "You… You called me Terrorsaur."

He blinked, but the moisture that had built up in his eyes from the optical damage he sustained went nowhere. He nodded shakily when another cold gale caressed his body with a harsh hand. "Wazzpinator knows." At that, he tried to smirk at me as much as he could, though the fact his mandibles made the motion mostly impossible kept him from doing so. Instead, he let his voice take on a slightly more joking tone. "Maybe voice glitch going away?"

I thought damn well that wasn't the case and I was sure Waspinator knew the same thing. Before either of us could divulge further into those thoughts however, I shifted the wrong way slightly and arched in pain when it struck me. Something in my right leg shifted beneath the surface of the burned armor and made a loud pop when it dislocated itself. I had somehow shattered my knee in the fall when I finally hit the ground. I threw my head back, gnashing my dentals in a frantic scramble to mute my agony, and I stifled my near shriek into a high pitched whine. A click later, the all too recognizable blue electricity and paralyzing sensation from an energon surge danced around my body. I saw Waspinator had one another click after that as well. He set his mandibles to keep from crying out but, regardless, he couldn't stop the loud razz of pain that came from his straining vocalizer.

When the surge temporarily stopped, Waspinator was the first to find his voice and speak up. "We'zz has to get to _Darkside_ to warn other Predacons. Megatron will want to know about cloud and flying island. If we'zz don't…" I did not want to voice the fact that, even though we survived the fall and initial attack from the obelisk, the reality that we could freeze to death was very real. A quick diagnostic proved this point. Warning lights flashed in the corner of my vision that my mech fluids were crystallizing rapidly. The fact we were in robot-mode on a rich in raw energon planet made things worse. Waspinator must have been in silent agreement with me. My partner looked me over and razzed again to get my full attention. "Convert to beast-mode so we'zz can fly back."

I whimpered. My head was still thrown back and I felt my jaw tremble slightly. The burns covering my body made my whole frame blaze in pain and I knew that either one of us turning to our respectful animal forms would be agonizing. It was absolutely Primus damn awful and I felt as though someone had dumped a few gallons of acid over my frame. Not strong enough to kill me, but strong enough to feel like it should have. "I can't move my leg…"

"_Try,"_ Waspinator begged, voice pleading.

I grit my teeth hard, gnashing them enough so that my jaw groaned from the stress, while I strained the best I could to get into a sitting position. My chest was dark with the third degree burns there - I had been hit directly in that spot head on - and I was momentarily thankful for having such tough armor plating. Being a leather saurian certainly had its quirks. I finally sat upright, attempting my best effort to ignore the cringe worthy pain pulsing in my frame, before my strength nearly gave. I started to fall back, but Waspinator I held his hand out behind me to keep me upright. I was grateful for my angel for that.

I squawked low - a long, rumbling sound - before hissing. "Terrorsaur, _terror - ARGH!"_

My body twisted around to form my beast-mode and I fell forwards, trembling in pain when he took on my alternate form. I couldn't even bring myself to voice my pain as it ripped up my abs and throbbed inside my chest before lashing back outwards into my limbs. Instantly, my wings felt as though they were on fire. I could feel that there were actually _holes_ in them, and a quick glance at them out of the corner of my blurry vision confirmed my horrors. They were so badly scorched that they were scalded white in places. Some of the red leather skin missing towards the wingtips and it nearly made me panic. I took my resolve by the throat and resisted the urge to scream though. For Waspinator's sake.

I looked at him, eyes narrowed with pain, and made another low squawk that resonated from the deep back of my sore throat. "Your turn."

I couldn't blame him for looking skeptical. He seemed to physically, as well as mentally if judging by the harsh look that clenched his face was any indication, braced himself. "Wazzpinator _terrorize!"_

Gods, his injuries were still horrific to look at. He fell forwards into beast-mode and lost my footing, sprawling out against the snow in his battered alternate form. The first thing that caught my attention was the condition of his thorax. The color there had turned to a shade of sickly yellow putrid enough to make me cringe. Then the black strikes that used to be there were also completely burned off, replaced with dark ebony smudges. His face was burned black in places and giving me the impression that he might have been partially blind in his beast-mode's optics. I ducked down next to him and nudged the poor mech with my beak. "Waspinator? _Waspy-"_

"Wazzpinator fine," he managed to ground out. My partner inclined his neck to look up at me, but then he suddenly turned away. I knew he was trying to avoid looking at my injuries. I was doing the same to him. Instead, I glanced down at my wings again I saw that they were burned so badly that the flesh was crumbling away. The idea of "fourth degree burns" came to mind but I don't really think that its an official term. I wasn't just cooked, I was burned to a _crisp_. I would still be able to fly at least, but only just barely. The air that became superheated when the obelisk fired its beam at us had burned the color right out of my red hide and leaving holes. I still saw myself as being far better off than Waspinator was though.

I shoved my beak underneath his chest as gently as I could and tried to lift him up, straining to get him onto his six feet. "C'mon, we need to get back and run a round in the CR chambers. Can you fly?"

"Can _Terror-bot?"_ I couldn't blame him for sounding as disbelieving as he did, although my own person was the least of my worries. Knowing the horrid shape his wings were in and knowing his antigravs was busted, I honestly doubted that the poor wasp could even manage to lift himself into the air. Through his aching and pain, I managed to weakly smirk at him. I didn't want him to worry about me in the same way I was to him.

We both had difficulty getting off the ground at first - Waspinator had stumbled when he tried to take off the first time - but we managed to get up into the freezing air not too long afterward. The wind bit at our hides like a merciless animal with no kindness towards the badly damaged, but we struggled onward regardless. Energon surges were no longer a _major_ threat to our health but, because of the open circuit injuries my wingmate and I had, it was still possible for us to suffer from energon radiation even while we remained in beast-mode. That was something that worried me, but it turned out that exposure to energon was the least of our problems. The exhaustion that began to wear us down became an even more serious issue.

My flight capabilities had begun to severely lag - I had used up a huge portion of my energy saving Waspinator - and I eventually had immense difficulty staying in the air without dropping right out of the sky. No more than ten cycles since I had noticed my flight becoming poor, Waspinator's own started to get bad. I was worse off I suppose, seeing as very little remained of his wings, but I cared very little for my own condition. I was more concerned for Waspinator. On another note altogether however, neither of us could fly straight. I was too worn to even keep my equilibrium evened out, while Waspinator kept dropping altitude and speed, flying erratically because his wings and antigravs sputtered and nearly failed on several occasions.

Whereas it should have taken us thirty cycles to get back to base if we were undamaged, it took us two full, agonizingly long megacycles. Our flying was at its worst then and our energy levels were in the single digits. If he had arrived any later, one of us would have dropped right out of the sky. Chances were that neither of us could survive another crash landing.

I spoke up next to Waspinator, my voice uncontrollably slurred. _"Finally._ I… I feel like my energy center is going to crash."

"Hang in there," he urged with a voice that was equally strained. "We'zz almost back."

We were there two cycles later. The both of us glided into the _Darkside's_ lower hanger and we both crashed into the ground as soon as we made contact with the floor. It was a minor crash, nothing compared to slamming into the ground when the island weapon's beam hit us so we lost our ability to maintain flight, but I thought I was going to drop into unconsciousness when I finally managed to stand. A great deal of nudging was needed on my part to get Waspinator moving again - he had rolled on his side and initially couldn't get up without my provoking - and it took another three cycles for us to limp into the blissfully warm control center.

When we entered, I could tell that Megatron was trying to hide a horrified expression. The way his face visibly knotted and the fashion his jaw was set gave this away easily. I knew that he had to have seen us approaching the base in our condition from the security cameras, but even I had to give him the benefit of the doubt now that he was seeing us in person. Our injuries looked far worse in the flesh than they did on a monitor screen, I guess.

Waspinator limped heavily in his beast-mode with all six legs while I staggered forward. When we managed to make it to stand before Megatron, a quick glance around the room revealed that only Scorponok and Blackarachnia were present. Tarantulas was nowhere in sight and the newest potential recruit, Inferno, was still running a round in the CR chamber. Before I could contemplate further, Megatron asked in a demanding tone if Tigertron had done this to us. The tyrant was aware that the Maximal was the only one in the far northern region but I didn't blame him for doubting a usually peaceful mech could inflict such horrendous damage.

Megatron seemed to be addressing me but, to keep me from being put underneath the spotlight in an already stressful situation, Waspinator intervened immediately. "No-no! Not just Tigertron!"

I cut in to back my emerald partner up, afraid to leave him alone underneath Megatron's aggravated attention. "I-It-It was um… A _monument!" _

Entirely instep and synchronized with me, Waspinator cut back in as well. He looked back up at Megatron and nodded his head quickly, his antennas bobbing with the movement. Doing that probably made his head spin, poor guy. "Yeah! Monument!"

Megatron demanded that we explain ourselves. His face was hard and his optics unwavering, but I was the one who jetted back in and took over. I was surprised by myself seeing how I usually hated being put on the spot around the tyrannosaur, but then there was the fact that Waspinator was exhausted and I didn't want to put him through more slag that necessary. If anyone was going to get scrapped for a failed mission, I was going to be absolutely sure that it was me and that no harm came to my partner. Waspinator seemed to appreciate the fact I took over on his behalf, so he contributed by nodding occasionally as I went into the long tirade on how we were gunned down by the obelisk onboard the flying island. Throughout my explanation though, I could feel fuzzy blackness invading the corners of my vision and my sense of already terrible coordination swaying. I couldn't tell if anyone noticed. I hope not. Then my energy completely hit rock bottom.

By the time I was finished my explanation, I was incredibly unsteady. As soon as I mentioned that Waspinator and I barely made it back, I had completely lost all his strength. I squawked feebly, felt my head roll his head back for a moment, and then I swayed just a little too far to his left. Waspinator broke my fall. Without the strength left to support me himself, he made a high pitched buzz and collapsed on his stomach.

Megatron had turned away to mull over the information given to him, but I found myself too distracted by exhaustion and my aching body care about what he was rambling on about to himself. I whimpered meekly and wheezed. "I can't move…"

Waspinator buzzed his wings in an obvious endeavor to console me. "Terror-bot be fine. Wazzpinator here, 'member?"

It worked tremendously. I squawked tiredly and allowed myself to go even laxer than before, undoubtedly nearly leading my emerald angel to believe that I had fallen into recharge. My harsh breathing must have indicated otherwise though, because he kept cooing back to me comfortingly.

Megatron abruptly turned back to us. I noticed first and I lifted my head off Waspinator so he could look at our tyrant leader. Waspinator razzed just barely, a sound that probably evaded everyone's audios but my own, and Grape Face told us to get to the CR chamber. The fragger's face was knotted again like he was trying to hide something, but I knew damn well that he was trying to conceal the surprise he felt while seeing my partner and I. It came to mind that the sight was probably very intimate looking the way Waspinator and I were making physical contact. Without another word, as soon as Megatron had finished speaking to us, I finally felt the last of my strength fade and I collapsed on Waspinator again.

Waspinator buzzed from surprise once more, but he managed to speak up quietly once the moment passed. "We'zz has to get into CR. Can Terror-bot still not move?"

My voice was a quiet wheeze. "I'll try."

While Megatron turned to Blackarachnia and Scorponok, all the while giving them orders to investigate the dark cloud that supposedly held our mysterious flying mountain, Waspy and I had picked ourselves up… as best as we _could_ anyways, given our not so preferable predicament. We never went to robot-mode due to the obvious that it would have been excruciating to do so. The nearest CR wasn't that far away thankfully enough, but we had to fly to get onto the lift which, all things being considered, was near impossible with our energy charges being so low. Hauling ourselves up with some difficulty, I collapsed on the platform as soon as Waspinator and I were on it. My partner hit the switch with a burnt claw to lower us in and the lift groaned with the additional weight of two mechs instead of the standard one. Either way, the platform began to descend into the tank when my emerald angel finally sprawled out next to me. With an almost sort of instinct backing up my next movement, he wrapped a protective, twisted beast-mode leg around my shoulders while casting a burnt wing over me as well. I responded by turning my head and shoving my beak under his beast-mode's head. Pain throbbed through my burned hide, by my light mewl was more induced by comfort than by pain. It was very comforting to have Waspinator as close as he was.

In a matter of moments, we were in the healing solution of the tub. The sedatives immediately took over and my systems started to shut down for repairs. I was in deep recharge even before Waspinator was. Moments prior to my own systems going offline for repairs however, I managed to groggily glance down at his face. The liquid of the tank prevented me from seeing him all that clearly, but his features were relaxed so much so that it made invisible claws tear at my spark within its own casing. His injuries - even while already starting to heal - made him look horridly hideous. The fact his beast-mode was probably one of the least prettiest bodies in the Beast Wars beside my own alternate body didn't make his appearance any better.

Anyone could have looked at him and called him the most hideous thing in the universe, but I suddenly found I loved him so much more than I could handle. I abruptly realized didn't care what Megatron or anyone else thought.

I loved him.

…Oh fraggit, I _loved him._

I was unconscious moments later, and I dreamt that Waspinator and I made love first on the mountain face of Tanna-16 and then inside of my quarters. The lighting in both places was a brilliant emerald and it accented his form perfectly. Being caught in the jade rays, I looked emerald too. He nuzzled and cooed to me in a reassuring, comforting rasp while he rocked against me. I cried out with every sway, begging him not to stop, but he never did. He called me by oddly fantastical pet nicknames every so often, referring to me as 'love' and breathing the word against my audios in hot breaths, but I didn't mind the addresses at all. In fact, I absolutely loved them. My pleas for him to continue gratifying me never fell on deaf audios and, the whole while, he held me in his arms. His grip never faltered and he never let go.

Just as the dream began to near its end, I felt my chest plate open and the glow of my red spark clashed with the green lighting. The combination of luminescence made the room turn a bright gold and Waspinator gazed down at my spark while continuing with his gentle ministrations. His face was flawless from my perspective - jaw set and with almost no sweat clinging to his features - while I was covered in condensation from both the session on Tanna and in his room. Out from the corner of my vision, I thought I saw a shroud of jet black feathers wrap around me. It's still strange to me, but I swear to this very day that he had a pair of angel's wings, in the place of his wasp ones, protruding from his back. In the integration of human and Cybertronian culture, the concept of angels had migrated over as well. Just like in one of the old paintings I had done back on Cybertron…

Waspinator might have been my emerald angel, but he was also my _guardian_ angel too. One that I would never _ever_ be willing to replace.

Wrapping his wings around me like a protective shell, he slipped his strong arms around my shoulders and hugged my lax body to his own. His eyes locked with mine and, keeping me in his embrace, I heard the hiss of mechanisms moving and I saw his chest plate parting out of the bottom corner of my bliss hazed vision. The dream ended before he could reveal his spark.

The dream ended too soon for my liking, but the thought of wanting the fantasy to continue disturbed just as much as it caught me off guard. Revealing one's spark to another was just as intimate as interfacing - possibly even more so - and Transformers usually only exposed sparks to each other when they were preparing to forge a bond. I briefly remembered the other dream I had - the one where I saw the green and red spark combine to make a single gold one - and the memory made my mechanical brain jolt in its casing.

…Were the dreams a prelude of what was to possibly come? I was too afraid to even _try_ guessing the answer.

My systems whirred to life and, upon waking up completely, I was greeted by Waspinator's unconscious form still beside me. The tank had already risen out of the healing gelatinous substance of the CR, and Megatron saw me. He was still seated in his throne, and he gave the order for Waspinator and I to go back to the island. He had apparently already sent Scorponok and Blackarachnia to capture it for the use of the Predacons and wanted my partner and I to go assist them. I transformed before lightly nudging my partner awake with my fist. My emerald angel stirred and awoke. When he looked up at me, I smirked down at him. I could imagine that my optics were sparkling. "Hey, rise and shine Waspy! Megatron is sending us back to the island."

As soon as we were out of the restoration chamber, he ordered us to head back to the flying mass so we could back up Blackarachnia and Scorponok. We took off from the base while flying closer together than we normally did. I hadn't realized our close proximity it until we were nearly out of range of the _Darkside_, but Waspinator said nothing in regards to the closeness. Meanwhile, he razzed and looked over at me in an attempt to break the silence. "Could Terror-bot and Wazzpinator _try_ not to get blown up this time?"

"I think that would be a good idea," I mused in an offhand tone. I scanned the air and ground below us when we gained higher altitude. "You all right?"

"Good as new," he brightly beamed. He buzzed and did a front flip in midair while we kept flying, but I was momentarily surprised when he didn't loose altitude or speed. He must have astounded himself tremendously as well, because his optics flashed with his own surprise. Immediately, I realized it had to have been my presence alone that kept himself from looking like a total fool. Even subconsciously. All the while, he was reaching up for my level so he could truly be beside me. This is why, ultimately, why I considered him to be my angel. That flame of determination within him was a true testament to how far he was willing to go to be with me, and I loved him for it… Primus, I _loved_ him. I loved him more then anything and I knew I would do anything for him if he asked me to. What we had was good, true, but I wanted something more than that. I… I wanted…

With the sun shining down on our backs and the wind pushing us up higher into the air, I decided right then and there that I wanted him as a bondmate. Without preamble, without hesitation, without regret the more I pondered over my decision. Perhaps the dreams _were_ a prelude, but then there was the chance that it was my fantasy and not his. There was a very real chance he didn't want me like that. The depressing thought made my spark pulsate painfully.

My computer abruptly beeped, breaking my thoughts. _"Attention. Units Optimus Primal and Rattrap in sector. Proceed with extreme caution."_

I heard the monotone femme and snapped back to reality from zooming out. I squawked and shifted to robot-mode. "If we fly higher, we can avoid them. I doubt they could possibly be headed were we are. There's no way Tigertron could contact the Maximals through that cloud cover."

Waspinator razzed. "Cloud cover?"

I looked over at him and raised an optical ridge. Did he not know what I was talking about? Judging by the confused look that had crossed his bug like features, I presumed that the answer was a definite yes. Shaking me head a few clicks after, I pivoted upwards and I heard Waspinator squeak when he suddenly found that he had transform and pivot with me in order to keep up. We dove upwards into the air and went about a hundred or so feet higher than the norm. It was colder up there, but it would be best if we wanted to avoid Optimus and Rattrap. Either way, I continued. "You know how our communication links won't work through high amounts of energon radiation? The high radiation acts like a thick barrier. The thicker the barrier, the less likely you can get a signal through it. It works the same way as heavy cloud cover or… I don't know. Maybe heavy rock or something. If you were in a cave deep enough, you might have a tough time trying to get a communiqué out."

"Like in rubble?" He asked outloud randomly. It seemed like a safe enough question to ask, namely because he probably knew there would be a chance he would get caught in one someday. As lucky as the poor guy was, his unfortunate skid plate was bound to probably end up being buried under rocks at some point or another. There was already the one occasion with him being pinned under that boulder, but I at least managed to luckily get him out without a problem. If he was caught in a landslide per say, I might not be able to help or even _find_ his sorry aft. It was obviously discerning that he would possibly have problems trying to get help if he couldn't contact anyone via my radio.

That bothered me as much as it bothered him, if not more. I nodded, valiantly trying not to let my concern show through my otherwise calm bravado. "Like rubble."

The subject on rubble seemed to end there but, in reality, it was only going to be a matter of another megacycle or so before we would brush up with death again. This time the brush would be so much closer to deactivation, catching both my emerald angel and I pinned under twenty thousand tons of flying island debris.

I was musing again, only half aware that I was actually doing it. "…Optimus is flying in the same direction we are. He's not changing course."

"He knows about island?" Waspinator looked over at me with an expression that was confused and surprised. "How? If cloud cover would keep radio signals from going through, how could Optimus know?"

I abruptly looked over at Waspinator, optics ablaze. Waspinator must have read the look that flared in my optics, because my emerald angel snarled and his own ocean azure optics turned to a cool fire. In unison, we both hissed Airrazor's name like it was the most foul thing on the face of the universe.

"How did she _know?"_ Waspinator said loudly in a razzing, exasperated tone.

"She probably saw us flying into the _Darkside's_ perimeter," I responded, a good amount of hate literally dipping off my voice. I made a frustrated sound, a snarl caught halfway between a growl and a furious hiss. Oh, how I _hated_ that femmebot. "She probably saw us coming from the north and known that Tigertron was there."

"And Bird-bot saw how hurt we wazz," he cut in. "Bird-bot know Tigertron not up for totally slagging botzz."

"So she reported back to the _Axalon_ knowing something else got to us. Now Primal is going to investigate and the Maximals will find the flying island!" I cut back in with a hiss. I sneered and screwed my face angrily. "Dammit, I should've been able to _detect_ her!"

"We wazz hurt," he tried to reason me him, trying to calm the anger I felt with myself. "Wazzpinator would've had better chance of picking her up on scanners anyways. Wazzpinator wasn't as bad off as Terror-bot! And even is we'zz did detect her, Wazzpinator and Terror-bot would be too hurt to stop her!"

I made a squawking caw. "It doesn't matter. We need to cut off Optimus and make sure he encounters some… Turbulence." I looked down towards the ground, scanning the earth below aimlessly. It as a threatening gesture towards Optimus on my part, but I could still feel myself from trembling in anger. I'm sure that it wasn't too obvious - you would have really had to scrutinize me greatly in order to see my miniscule shudders - but I'm sure that Waspinator noticed. I didn't think he could blame me though. I was still furious over the fact Airrazor had ratted us out concerning what we ran into, but I was even more furious that she was alive to begin with. She hurt Waspinator once. Screw her having hurt me. She laid her hands on Waspinator, and I was going to kill her for that.

Agony.

It surged from my spark into my limbs before looping back down into my spark again. My optics went wide and his hands instinctively flew up to grasp at and cover my chest. I hit the brakes on his anti-gravs and Waspinator zoomed past me unintentionally. Through my pain hazed vision, he slammed a mental foot down onto his own brakes and he skidded to a halt midair.

"_Terror-bot!" _He whipped around and flew over to me, stopping before just as he came up. My emerald angel hovered in front of me and his optics were bright with concern and definite fear. Fear for my wellbeing. That was another reason that he was my angel. He cared for me.

I was hunched over, optics squeezed shut, and my chest heaved with the great amount of effort I had to put in just to breathe. His teeth were gnashed hard enough that I could hear the metal of my jaw groaning under the stress. Just as easily as it began though, the sharp pain started to subside into something far more tolerable. My chest stopped automatically heaving with the effort of trying to take a breath and I blew out air through my nose loudly.

Waspinator went to prodding me verbally, still obviously taken aback by my sudden expression of pain. He was no doubt afraid to touch me in fear that whatever ailed me before would strike again. "Terror-bot? _Terror-bot!"_

I made a gasping noise. "I-I'm fine. I'm…" I sputtered and my chest heaved one more time as the pulsating pain, although receding, spiked one more time. I managed to turn back to reality a moment later when it settled into a dull ache. I opened my optics, brightened them, and then looked up at Waspinator with a look that felt far too hazy for my own liking. My breaths came out as heavy pants. "I'm… I'm fine."

He shook his head, not buying what I was saying to him. He was either very smart or very stubborn, and I knew that it was definitely more so the earlier than the latter. "Slag no. Wazzpinator take Terror-bot back to base. Something wrong-"

"I'm _fine,"_ I insisted, trying to sound reassuring. I don't think I pulled it off, since Waspinator looked far from convinced. I straightened out slightly and looked myself over in a vain attempt to seem casual. I couldn't look back up to regard him square in the eye when he I glanced back up, though. My surge bothered me because it only occurred after my thought of protecting Waspinator. "It just felt like a little spark surge. Nothing serious…"

In hindsight, a spark surge was similar to a human's minor heart attack. Whilst a spark could be put under more stress than an ordinary human heart, this meant minor 'heart attacks' were very much harmless to Transformers. Surges would happen only when energy inside the spark chamber is built up and has nowhere else to go, leading it to gradually build and erupt from the casing and lash a surge throughout the body. They were painful, true, but otherwise common with Transformers.

Except I was in much more pain than I should have normally been. While smaller spark surges were harmless, larger ones could be deemed life threatening. By the way mine had been as painful as it had, my surge had been larger than normal.

He pressed on. "Terror-bot-"

"Look, I said I'm okay," I managed to say much more reassuringly now. The way I emphasized on saying the words gave me the momentarily expression that I was maybe trying to convince _myself _that I was fine, but I didn't linger on the subject long enough to let even myself evaluate my way of saying it, let alone Waspinator. I looked up at my partner before looking back down at myself to evaluate his appearance… even though any damage sustained would have been internal. "See. No damage."

"Terror-bot _sure?"_

I gave him a playful slap over the head. Anyone else, had they been watching, would have deemed the gesture perhaps violent or ill minded. In truth, it was further from that than that from peace between the Maximals and us Predacons. The metal of my hand clanked against his helm and he razzed outloud, but it was a friendly gesture all the same. I felt my hand linger for a split click longer than it should have, leaving the contact intimate in both our eyes. I switched back into beast-mode. He followed suit when I spoke again. "Yeah. _Positive._ Now, c'mon! Let's go get us some Maxis!"

We weren't the ones who necessarily got them though. From my perspective at least, they got _us_. We engaged Optimus Primal with Rattrap riding him, I swooped in first from Optimus' right while my emerald angel continued to remain out of the Maximals' range of vision. I zoomed up into the air, preparing myself to seemingly go into a midair flip, and I switched to robot-mode and fired on the ape just a click later. Two shots pulsed from my shoulder cannons, but they missed Primal completely. As the Maximal leader attempted to fly away - noticeably further north - Waspinator came up behind him. He transformed quickly, doing a front flip of his own when he smoothly changed from beast to robot, and he quickly increased his speed to keep up with Optimus. Shooting with my sniper now instead of my shoulder weapons, I dove in and flanked my partner's left.

We stopped shooting for a moment when my weapon needed to recharge. Though Optimus knew we were still in pursuit, he stopped trying to evade us. Knowing Optimus was distracted, I gave up on my sniper and holstered it into my back subspace. My cannons withdrew from their holsters and I shot. My aim, as usual, was dead accurate.

Optimus fell and Rattrap lost his grip on his commander's back, plummeting straight at the ground. I went after him immediately while Waspinator continued to engage Optimus. I couldn't keep track of my partner during the time he left my side due to my occupation with the rat, but it didn't matter. I zoomed down after Rattrap as he fell - the whole way the rat was squealing about how he was going to die, which I found funny enough to laugh about - and he looked up when he heard my sniggering. His eyes bugged out of his small little beast-mode's skull and that was when I deactivated my antigravs and let myself freefall. I was feeling cheery enough to tease him about his situation, but then the damn rodent took advantage when he transformed and tried to shoot me in the face. I recoiled backward and, unsettled, transformed back into beast-mode… right before the Maximal landed on my back _riding me._ I would have thrown him off in a click, but the gun pointed at my temple was rather intimidating. Some ways away, I saw Optimus shoot down Waspinator. My spark hitched in its casing in worry, but I could see Waspinator regain his balance several hundred feet down. He was nothing more than a speck in my vision, but the emerald of his armor gleaming in the sunlight made him stand out. He was fine, thank Primus.

_'And doing a lot better than me,'_ I thought to myself bitterly. I felt Rattrap tap the barrel of his handheld gun against my head and I did as I was told when he said for me to fly up to Primal. Except, on the way up, I realized something very important.

I willingly, and without panic, _let myself freefall. _With that thought, I also inexplicably realize something else. I wasn't afraid of heights anymore.

As it turned out, Airrazor had alerted Optimus and Rattrap to the existence of the flying island. Although, from what I heard, she had apparently been grounded and was trapped with Tigertron. I smiled at that prospect, hoping that maybe the beam that shot my partner and I would fry her too. Maybe it already had. Either way, as went, I could distinctly see the glimmer of emerald several thousand feet below and following. Though Waspinator was keeping his distance, this was probably to keep me out of harm's way and safe. Then if anything did happen, I knew that he would have my back to get me out of there if the situation arose. Upon entering the northern region, the mass of black looming clouds was passing in between two mountains. Optimus flew into it, Rattrap and I trailing behind after him, and I could see as Waspinator - continuing to keep his distance - followed suit. My nerves were wracked with nervousness - after all, the obelisk in the center of the island's plain had nearly killed me and my emerald angel - but the looming tower didn't fire at us when the fog finally parted. Waspinator continued to keep pace behind and I watched intently as Optimus began to descend down to the ground. I recognized Tigertron and Airrazor standing in wait immediately and a momentary burst of anger made me razz. Airrazor _did_ look like she was hurt though, so it partially eased my aggravation.

The tree with that one low branch gave me the perfect moment to escape.

I swooped down underneath the branch and knocked Rattrap right off my back. I gave a cackling squawk in a victorious fashion and flew some ways away, not fearing whether or not he would shoot me. Granted that the Maximals were in a new territory that they knew nothing about, they would probably want to save all their ammo. I would have transformed and fired shots myself, but the fact I was greatly outnumbered made me consider otherwise. I flew a little ways away, touched down, and heard a familiar buzz rise over the light shuffle of the tree branches swaying in the slight breeze. There was the whir of a transformation sequence and a giant wasp landed in the center of the open wood.

Light from the strangely illuminated sky peeked through the trees and cast shadows over Waspinator when I turned to him. I sounded breathless and, true to word, I was exhausted after carrying Rattrap on my back. My beast-mode wasn't built to transport cargo on its back, regardless of how light the package. "Are you all right? What happened?"

"Wazzpinator got shot down. Wazzpinator had to follow behind. You?"

"I'd rather not even _go_ there," I groaned. If taken hostage in my own element by a Primus damned _land crawler_ wasn't bad enough, I had the al too tall aroma of garbage resonating off my hide. Damn rat infected me with his stench! Waspinator found the situation humorous though, and he giggled compulsively when I screwed my face from the smell I was having a severe time being comfortable with. I ignored him, trying to cover up my embarrassment with my usual prided bravado. "I smell like slag."

"Slag _never_ smellzz that bad," he joked brightly. I cast him an irritated glare but, without much else to stop him, he burst out laughing. My partner fell onto his side, curling into a ball and rolling on his back while holding his sides with all six beast-mode legs. Son of a glitch.

I squawked, throwing my wings out in an exasperated gesture of frustration. "That's not funny! I was taken _hostage!" _

He probably didn't think the hostage part was funny either, so he stopped cackling and shook his head. "Now what? We'zz go find Spider-bot and Scorpion-bot?"

"Looks like it," I murmured quietly. I looked upwards trying to look past the trees at the purple pyramid top of the tower that had nearly killed us some few megacycles earlier. Waspinator followed my gaze and recognized the object of my attention. I spoke up again, my voice a low grumble. "That thing attacked us as soon as we came here the first time. Why doesn't it do anything now?"

"Maybe we'zz set it off last time," he offered. "Somehow anyways."

"I don't like it," I grumbled in a low voice. I spoke up louder a moment afterward. "All right, we'd better go look for the arachnids. Scorponok has his useless tendencies and Blackarachnia is a glitch, but they're smart enough to figure these things out on their own. They'll know something we don't about that thing. Hopefully speaking at least…"

We moved quickly, taking back off into the air and flying upward so we could attempt to see them. I squawked, pointing out two moving figures on the ground below the base of the tower, and a quick scan on Waspinator's part revealed that they had two Predacon energy signatures. We flew off in their general direction but, not even a moment after we started to go after them, I spoke up again.

"Hey, Waspy?"

"Hm?"

"When Rattrap was falling, I let myself freefall too. Did you see that?"

He probably hadn't, granted that he was probably more than busy dealing with Optimus Primal. It was made evident when he looked at me sharply enough to make the gears in his beck squealm and his optics were alit with a strong glow of surprise lighting them. He was regarding me with a highly astonished expression. "Terror-bot did _what?"_

"I let myself freefall," I said, this time louder and feeling more confident. I felt myself grin. "And, I mean, I didn't freak out over it. I don't know why, but it just didn't bother me. When you were falling earlier today, after I caught you, I didn't mind falling then either."

"Terror-bot looked all freaked out, though."

"Because I _was,"_ I admitted. "But it was over the fact I didn't _mind_ falling. That's never happened to me before. I'm not afraid to do it right now either." With that, I suddenly dropped some altitude next to Waspinator. My emerald cohort razzed in surprise, looking like he was nearly ready to jump out of his own casing when I dropped, but then I regained my regular flight position beside him. Waspinator squeaked in surprise and I cackled in a victorious sort of manner. "See! I could do that all _day_ and not be bothered by it!"

He smiled at me, or at least the best he could in beast-mode. "Great job Terror-bot."

I grinned back. "Couldn't do it without you, love."

Waspinator almost stuttered, but he kept his voice in check. "Eh?"

It was then that I realized exactly what I had said. I wouldn't have eve caught on that I referred to Waspinator as "love" if the subject for my affections didn't ask what I had said. I felt my expression drop blankly and my I sounded distant. "Huh?"

"What did Terror-bot say?"

My mind started to reel. Did I really just call him what I _thought_ I did? Well, I certainly must have if Waspinator reacted. A moment after some mental deliberation with himself, he said he couldn't remember. It was a lie, and I knew that Waspinator knew it was a lie too.

Our radios blared to life. _"The fliers will try to take our triumph for their own. They _must_ be stopped. I will blow them from the sky!" _

We came to a screeching halt just as we were in a hundred or so feet of the tower and fifty or so feet above its tipped point. Below, Blackarachnia stood with her gun aimed at us. Waspinator and I looked at one another, and then I felt a wave of fury lash out through my systems. Blackarachnia? _Betray us?_ That boiled my circuits. How dare she! I stuttered, taken aback, and sneered viciously in my enragement. "Backstabbing bug! I'll vape you _first! Terrorize!" _

With a mighty caw, I swooped down fifty or so feet, putting myself in level with the mauve pyramid on top of the obelisk and twenty or so feet closer to it than before. I drew my pistol and fired once with a cackle, but Blackarachnia suddenly jumped out of the way. Scorponok was thrown aside from the explosion - Waspinator flew down to my level at this point to join me, though he didn't transform to draw his own weapon - and then I saw the top of the tower turn from its original shade of violet to a dark gold. A whirring, gradually building and erratic beeping sort of noise followed before the air was hissing again.

A beam shot out of the tower, and it was heading straight for Waspinator and I.

Immediately, I realized that I had been used. Blackarachnia and Scorponok were trying to get into the obelisk, but they discovered that our very own energy weapons were the culprit for setting off its destructive tendencies. They also knew having it fire before they could blast their way into the base would give them the chance to get in without being shot at themselves. If it went off before they blasted their way inside, the monument wouldn't have enough time to recharge before they used their own weapons to break in. Being as treacherous as she was, Blackarachnia decided to use my partner and I as bait for the alien construct.

I stared ahead in disbelief. Then I cranked my neck to look up at my green partner while he hovered beside me in beast-mode. He turned his own head to face me as well, his expression blank with horror.

I squeaked, feeling what little color their already was fleeing my face. "Oops."

The beam itself didn't actually hit us this time. It exploded between us instead. The pain wasn't thankfully that bad, but the initial jolt was enough to make the both of us yelp in moderate pain. The heat still caused out antigravs circuits to fry out however, and our equilibrium failed as we fell. Waspinator's shriek rose over the hissing and sharp booming retaliation of the beam. _"Pterodactyl idiot!"_

Luckily for us, the island's lake was positioned beneath where we were falling. I had only a moment to look down and see the crystal clear water rushing up to meet me before I slammed into it on my back. The wind was knocked out of me and I heard another crash of water a split second later, indicating Waspinator's own landing. The cool water sent a shock through my systems and I gasped, taking in water and choking from the lack of oxygen. It was moments like those that I wished that my beast-mode didn't make me for dependent on oxygen as it did. Bubbles and murky darkness shrouded my vision and I struggled to right myself and find the surface. Then I saw light. Desperately, I frantically kicked out with my legs and broke the surface. I gasped, splashing erratically, and focused on regaining my breath. The cool water at least made the light burning searing my side where I was closest to the beam ache all the less, and it gave me enough leverage to turn around in the water without too greatly disturbing my injuries.

My sight was met with nothing. I was alone.

Waspinator didn't surface with me.

I gasped and took air harshly, still trying to get my breath back, and I spun about in the water. Still, I couldn't see my partner anywhere. "Waspinator! _Waspy!"_

…Oh _Primus_.

Without even thinking, I took in as deep of a breath as I could and I dove under. The lake was deep and pitch black, but the sunlight glaring down through the surface gave me just enough light to make out the something glinting bright emerald sinking out of view. He must have hit the water and lost consciousness. I kicked my legs and moved my arms furiously trying to reach him. Without even thinking, I activated my antigravs in an attempt to increase my speed. They sizzled and a warning popped up in the corner of my vision saying that they were entirely busted. No doubt they had malfunctioned when I hit the water as hard as I did, knowing they had been fine at Tanna-16's lake. Thinking about Tanna, I forced my straining body deeper. Waspinator must have been further away than I initially thought, because the pressure started to press uncomfortably on my tactile sensors and it was getting colder. Waspinator, all the while, kept sinking. Primus, I knew he shouldn't have been sinking that fast. The first explanation that came to mind was that he had inhaled water into his body so that it was weighing him down. That couldn't have been safe. How mush of the depth's pressure could his beast-mode take before expiring, anyways? That thought scared me.

My chest started to burn from the lack of oxygen. If Waspinator hadn't meant as much to me as he had, I would have given up and returned to the surface. If Waspinator _hadn't_.

Pitt, I was _not_ going to let Waspinator drown. Even if he went down, I sure as the inferno was going down with him.

This ended up not being the case, because I reached him almost without realizing. I would have swum right past him too, if the brilliance of his emerald armor didn't catch my eye and keep me from doing so. His beast-mode looked crumpled from hitting the water so hard, and I was afraid to initially touch him in the fear that he would fall apart. He didn't. I took him up into my arms swiftly and instantly started to swim back up as quickly as I could. My chest was on fire now and my spark was straining painfully. I kept holding my breath regardless of my stupid body's protests. Oxygen deprivation warnings flashed in my vision. I ignored them. All that mattered was the limp weight in my arms and how direly important it was that I get it to the surface. Screw my needs. Waspinator came first, no arguments of otherwise or questions asked.

I broke the surface.

I actually kept holding my breath for half a click, because it took me that long to remember for my vision to readjust to the lighting of the world above the water. My chest felt like it was going to explode. Water splashed around my face and I gasped very loudly. Air rushed through my intake valves and instant relief reached my systems… all of them, of course, except for my sense of severe worry. Waspinator was still lying limp in my arms and was, at that moment, nothing more than a glistening wet slab of deadweight. I almost ended up going back under the water again because of my impaired swimming capabilities - holding my unconscious partner had taken up the use of my arms - and I had to settle for furiously kicking at the freezing water to stay afloat. True to word, the water in the flying island lake _was_ much colder than Tanna's. That much only reminded me about the treacherously dangerous situation my partner was in, and it only inspired my aching and tired legs to keep pumping through the water aggressively. I swam backwards, hoping that it was the closest direction to reach the shoreline.

The heel of my foot struck gravely sand and I immediately readjusted my footing to stand. I had misjudged the strength in my legs, because they gave out and I fell back into the water with Waspinator with me. Screeching angrily, I forced myself back up and made my tiring body stand. The water reached my waist. My fear for Waspinator's wellbeing had propelled me out from near the middle of the lake to the shoreline in under a minute, which was brilliant timing all by itself. Waspinator was even heavier now that the water wasn't affecting gravity's pull on him. He felt like he weighed the entire capacity of an entire crate's load of lead and then some. Straining, body protesting from soreness, I dragged Waspinator out of the water and then set him down onto his back. He didn't move. His chest wasn't rising or falling. He wasn't breathing.

Blind white panic surged through my systems. I collapsed onto my hands and knees beside him and didn't ask for a second opinion, regardless of the fact that there was no one around to get a second opinion _from_. I wasn't entirely fluent in the art of CPR, but I knew enough from hearing about it to know the basics. I braced my hands against his stomach so I wouldn't put too much unnecessary pressure on his chest and I pumped six times. Waspinator didn't stir. I tilted his head toward me, cupped his mandibles, and puffed air into his mouth. I thought I felt him move, but he was still entirely still when I pulled away again. I pumped his lower chest six more times. More air into his mouth. This time around, I felt water seeping around my hands where I had cupped his jaws. I immediately pulled away and pumped at his stomach again. He hacked up water. Without even thinking, I leaned forward and lightly slapped him on the face a few times to see if that would help. "Waspy? _Waspinator!_ Waspinator, come _on,_ snap _out of it!" _

I gave him another slap on the side of the face and he violently coughed hard from the access water in my systems. His voice was rough and scratchy, and its reminiscence to mine was undistinguishable. The optics of his beast-mode started to brighten. I rolled my partner onto his stomach - he was still limp and heavy, although noticeably not as much as he was before - and I thumped hard on his back trying to help clear his clogged airways. He coughed up much more water than before and took in gasping breaths. I kept rubbing his back and lighty pounding it. In the meantime, there was a harsh whirring sound and I looked up in surprise to meet it.

There was movement at the obelisk, and none too benevolently looking either. I watched, astonished and horrified, as the violet marble pyramid at the top of the tower started to get the orange energy built up inside it once more. I was momentarily terrified that it was going to fire in our direction to finish what it started, but then brilliant orange light shot out from it in all directions. The flat beam completely streamed over mine and Waspinator's heads in a nightmarish display of alien energies. The area was coated in orange light, somewhat similar to the sunsets Waspy and I would watch out at Tanna. There was nothing benevolent or peaceful about this light however, and that greatly worried me. The beams of light being shot out from the obelisk top started to arch upward.

Out of the corner of my vision, I could see Waspinator shakily try to turn his head to look up at me. His breathing seemed to have returned to normal. I stopped rubbing his back and I looked down to him. He blearily looked up at him and razzed. "Wazzpinator feels like he went through disk washing machine…"

Relief surged through my systems with the realization that he was all right, albeit I knew he wouldn't have the strength to fly us out of there. I checked the status of my automated repairs and, to my dismay, realized that my antigravs were slow in recovering. We were stuck. "Save it. We have bigger problems," I said grimly. "My gravs are busted and the self repair is taking forever. Then…" I looked up towards the beam being shot up from the tower.

That was when Waspinator finally started to pay attention to his surroundings, and I heard him audibly buzz nervously. The sky was aglow with a brilliant orange and the hissing of the tower resonated from overhead. I looked up and gaped in horror at the sight of the golden beam streaming above in a brilliant display. Light from the tower jetted out in all directions and aimed upwards slowly, moving to the epicenter of the sky just above the pyramid's point. The beams suddenly vanished and a single blast of white light shot up in a pulse. It disappeared in the island's misty shield and the clouds abruptly disintegrated. The inky blackness of the uncovered night that cast across the island made the alien device look menacing. It was silent for a few moments and everything was still.

I imagined that Waspinator would have asked me what the frag was happening, but that wouldn't have helped him much. Pitt, even I wasn't sure what was going on. Suddenly, the obelisk top hissed again, this time before going dim and shooting huge pulse blasts. The night was lit with lights of the explosions the blasts made they hit the ground.

_…Slag._

Artificial adrenaline gushed through my coolant tubes and I was up on my feet in an instant. I didn't need to see the destructive blasts exploding when they hit the ground to know that it would generally be a very bad thing if Waspinator and I were struck. I grabbed my emerald angel by his scruff and gave him a good tug before letting go. _"Get up and RUN!"_

He was comprehensive enough after nearly drowning that didn't need to be told twice. Unfortunately, it never occurred to me that his systems would be too waterlogged for him to initiate his transformation from beast to robot-mode. Then, of course, was the fact that he still couldn't fly. Attempting to run in his beast-mode very much impossible due to the way his legs were positioned - his alternate form was more orientated for crawling rather than bolting - and I heard him cry out after I had already jogged a few feet from him. His voice was panic stricken. "Terror-bot!"

I heard him, realized my mistake, and turned around. Seeing him looking at me as horrified as he was, I cursed loudly at my own idiocy before the ground exploded just a few feet behind me. With a screech, I was flipped forward and I fell heavily onto my chest. The wind was knocked out of me and I heard Waspinator cry out for me when he saw me go down. I had enough sense to pull myself up either way though, and I scrambled to my feet and ran the rest of the distance back over to him. I fell to his knees and skidded a few inches, slipped my arms underneath his shaking body, and I grunted when forced my stupidly tired body to stand. I held him in his arms close to my chest and my grip never faltered. "Hold on!"

He did and I turned on my heel, running like a bat would fly out of the very bowels of the Pitt. The explosions behind us sent dirt and gravel flying up in every which direction and I narrowly made it a hundred or so meters from the obelisk before I, stupid me, tripped on the lone root of a bush. With a squawking scream, I fell and dropped him. He flew from my grip and I fell hard on my chest, pulling my caught foot at the same time. Something - a ball joint or a gear or something - snapped and started screaming with pain. I had to bite my lip almost hard enough to draw coolant to keep from crying out. Out of the corner of my vision - slightly blurred from the immense agony surging up my ankle and back into my damaged stabilizing servo - I saw Waspinator roll twice before stopping himself. At first I thought I knocked him unconscious, but he sat up a moment later and appeared to me to obviously be fine, if only shaken. Instantly Explosions were roaring around us. I immediately tried to stand in order to retrieve him, but my foot refused to cooperate and wouldn't let me apply pressure without singing in agony. Great. So not only could I and Waspinator not fly, but now I was incapable of getting us to safety on foot. The frustration was just as intense as the undying hatred at felt at myself for not watching my step. I tried to stand again, only the fumble and collapse with a squawk.

The pain was awful.

"Fraggit, my _ankle!_ _SLAGGIT!"_ Even trying to sit up was a burden, and I yelped with pain when I tried to. The havoc from the obelisk's assaults were everywhere, and the thought that the both of us - not just one or the other - would probably get ourselves killed was a frightening one. Somewhere behind me, there was the sound of metal scraping metal. After the incident, Waspinator told me that it was the sound of the tower rising on its pedestal to increase its height by double. He also told me that the area we were in was thankfully not nearly as dangerous in regards to where the blasts from the obelisk's beam weapon were striking, but that didn't matter to me. All that I cared about was that we were in harms way for as long as we were on that godforsaken tower, and I had to get us off… and then even that wasn't possible anymore. At least not with our combined injuries and handicaps sustained.

Wind, powerful, abruptly my flank. It affected Waspinator too, because he nearly bowled over onto his side from the forceful gale. The trees swayed with the movement and, with a start, I realized that the island was turning around and changing course. Where it was going however, I honestly didn't care.

Waspinator crawled over to me, twitching his antennas and looking down at my broken ankle with a great deal of concern reflecting in his compound eyes. "Terror-bot?"

"It's busted," I hissed through my teeth, failing miserably to try masking the fact I was in pain with my usual bravado. I continued to strain to get onto my aft and I could distinctly feel that my foot was twisted around at an angle that I knew should have otherwise been impossible. I didn't want to look at it. If I did, I probably would have gotten sick or had more of a panic attack than I was already straining not to have. What little control I had of my resolve however, I had little over my emotions. I took in a raggedly unsteady intake that was just as breathless as it was shaken. "Oh Primus, it… It's completely busted. I-I can't walk."

"Is okay. We… Wazzpinator and Terror-bot find some other way to get somewhere safe," he tried to comfort in an otherwise vain attempt to keep me from panicking. H was to late of course - I could already feel my spark pulsate quicker in terror and my breaths coming out in short, quick bursts - but I had to give my partner at least some credit. The pulse blasts stopped shooting at the area we were in directly, shooting overhead us and about fifty yards away. We were going to get hit if we stayed out in the open. "Its okay, Terror-"

There was an explosion somewhere behind us, louder and with a different noise than the blasts making the ground erupt around my partner and me. A loud hissing noise not like the sound of the hot beam hitting the air resonated from the obelisk. Waspinator looked past me and I cranked my head back to look at the tower as it was suddenly engulfed with bright yellow electricity not that much unlike the static that would dance around our own frames during energon surges. I saw the figures of the Maximals fleeing - Airrazor picked up Rattrap by his shoulders while the femme was in beast-mode just as Optimus made a grab for Tigertron - and then the wind changed again. This time stronger the gale was even stronger, and I initially didn't think that was possible.

I trembled. I had a _very_ bad feeling about this. "Wha - ?"

I suddenly noticed the tower stopped shooting clicks before the wind changed and I felt the ground wobble underneath us. It was almost like an earthquake, but the ground still seemed undamaged aside from the smoldering craters that were cast across the landscape. That and the fact there were no tectonic plates anywhere underneath the island made earthquake theory obsolete right away, though the term still seemed to fit all the same. Waspinator was jerked to the side and he cried out, but I reached out and snatched his beast-mode's right front forearm before he could roll away. My other hand made a grab for the bush connected to the root that tripped me. At least the damn thing would be of some moderate use, after all. I held on tightly and we both cried out when the ground jerked up beneath us again.

"Waspinator, _hang on!"_ I tightened my grip on his arm and he stared back up at me with horrified optics.

The ground stopped wavering, yeah, but then it started to tremble as though we _were_ living through a seismic quake. A branch on the shrub I was gripping snapped and I had to madly scramble to grab another one. Abruptly, the ground began to tilt onto its side. I slipped down the ground because of this and I blindly tightened my grip on the bush tenfold. The shrub's branches held under my vice hold just barely - I heard the twigs snapping over the abrupt roar of rushing wind around us and, with horror, I felt air rush past my face at a rate of speed I was in no way comfortable with.

Waspinator must have felt the same thing, because he shrieked. "Island is _falling!"_

The incline of the ground changed again suddenly, pivoting to the left at an angle that made the both of us cry out, and more branches snapped under my already tight grip on the hedge plant. There was _another_ sudden tremor - honestly, it felt like we hit a bump - that nearly caused Waspinator to let go of my forearm. While his grip was momentarily lessened, mine tightened to keep him from slipping away from me. He looked back to me with fear ridden optics and I felt my own flash both protectively and fearfully.

I wasn't going to let him go. He didn't let me go when he saved me from Airrazor and now it was my turn to hang onto him. It was almost as if the guardian angel role had been temporarily switched. For a fleeting moment, _I_ was the angel. It felt weird, but I didn't have any longer to mull over it.

A loud groaning resonated from all around us and then the ground began to tilt dangerously. The bush I was hanging onto being unearthed - the roots were snapping and it was being torn from the ground - and I felt gravity start to pull back on us. I felt my face pale more so than it already was and Waspinator dared to look behind him at what I was seeing.

The ground was barely off angle from being completely vertical and I saw the ground below the island come into view. Air began to rush past my face in a powerful windstorm and the ground below started to rush up towards us. The rate of speed increased and the island _was _falling. The whoosh of air rushing past us turned into a loud, menacing roar that made my audios ring painfully and Waspinator screamed. I did to, but I kept my death hold on the small shrub for dear life. I wasn't afraid of falling in general anymore, but this was something new altogether. If we crashed, we would most definitely be killed.

"_WASPINATOR! HANG-!"_

The island crashed.


End file.
